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Westbeth Artists Community, United States

Category: Attraction

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55 Bethune St
New York
NY 10014
USA

New York, United States Print route » N40° 44' 13" W74° 0' 30.31"   (40.736944444444, -74.008419444444) Start navigation »

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Westbeth Artists Housing is a nonprofit housing and commercial complex dedicated to providing affordable living and working space for artists and arts organizations in New York City. Its campus comprises the full city block bounded by West, Bethune, Washington and Bank Streets in the West Village neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City; the complex is named for two of these streets, West and Bethune.It occupies the Bell Laboratories Buildings, which were the headquarters of Bell Telephone Laboratories 1898–1966, before being converted in 1968–1970. That conversion was overseen by architect Richard Meier. This low- to moderate-income rental housing and commercial real estate project, the largest in the world of its type, was developed with the assistance of the J.M. Kaplan Fund and federal funds from the National Endowment for the Arts.
Westbeth is owned and operated by Westbeth Corp. Housing Development Fund Corp. Inc., a New York not-for-profit corporation governed by an unpaid, volunteer board of directors. As of 2009, Westbeth has a very old population, including many original tenants – about 60% of tenants were over the age of 60 years, and about 30% were over the age of 70. It is thus a naturally occurring retirement community, and has an on-site social worker. Children of tenants are allowed to take over their parents' apartment, and thus there is a multi-generational community. Due to the 10–12-year waiting period for an apartment, Westbeth closed its residential waiting list in 2007 and as of 2016 is still not accepting new applications.

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