‘If I Had to Leave This Place, I Would Probably Leave New York’

Joshua Charow’s book, Loft Law, The Last of New York City’s Original Artist Lofts, tells the story, through pictures and interviews, of the people who live in some of the most romantically bohemian spaces in the city. Many of them have lived in their lofts for decades, even before it was legal to do so, fixing up the drafty, derelict spaces. Gentrification followed, and landlords did their best to cash in, often by getting rid of these pioneers. So a band of artists got together in 1979 and worked to establish what became the Loft Law in 1982, which helped establish the Loft Board to oversee the conversion of raw spaces into rent-stabilized residential homes. “If you’re lucky enough to walk into one of their studios, you will be transported back to the year they moved in, to a New York that doesn’t exist anymore,” writes Charow in his intro. The book gives us “a peek into the wonderful worlds they’ve created and sustained in our ever-changing city.” We chose three of them, from three different neighborhoods and decades.

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