Millions of square feet of office and retail space in the city remain empty. But some savvy commercial landlords have found new and creative uses for their buildings.
Real estate scion and patron of the avant-garde performing arts, Anita Durst — the daughter of Douglas Durst and granddaughter of the late-Seymour Durst — has long taken advantage of her family’s vast portfolio.
In 1995, she founded ChaShaMa, a nonprofit that provides rehearsal and performance space for performing artists in her family’s buildings near Times Square, and later included visual artists.
So far the program has provided spaces to 30,000 artists, put on 1,500 free art workshops and classes in underserved communities, organized 4,000 public art events, partnered with numerous real estate owners and obtained grant money.
But during the pandemic, Durst saw a particular need. She started a program dubbed Storefront Startup to support small minority-run businesses by providing them with pop-up retail stores.
For instance, the Bronx Gala at 1 Fordham Plaza on East Fordham Road is currently hosting FINEZT, a brand created by a self-taught local designer, Edwin Reyes. The pieces on display from his women’s wear line are meant to uplift the spirits and show how “fashion is another form of art.”
So far, Durst has retailers open in 25 locations and is ramping up to 150.
“With all the empty spaces in New York, the more we can activate temporarily will help the economy and help our psyches and will help New York come back,” she said.
Meanwhile, Cory Silverstein — the son of Roger Silverstein of Silverstein Properties and the grandson of World Trade Center owner, Larry Silverstein — was inspired by Durst along with the shared office models and other residency programs to create Silver Art Projects.
The program provides space to artists through a curated residency program at 4 World Trade Center.
“We wrote a business proposal showing that it could be valuable to the community,” Silverstein said of how he and co-founder Joshua Pulman, convinced his art-savvy grandpa to provide an empty floor that was set aside for an office tenant’s future expansion.
The more than 40,000-square-foot floor now provides 500 square feet to 1,500 square feet to each of the artists, who are chosen by a jury for an eight- to 10-month occupancy.
“The first cohort arrived in June [2020] and we’re about to transition,” he said.
With 500 applications from around the globe, another jury will be selecting the next group of 25 to 30 artists starting in May, and then rotating them into the 28th floor of the tower.
“They have a good amount of space and the building has modern HVAC so were able to get them into their studios in phases,” Silverstein said of the social distancing that was required by the pandemic. “They are in the space together and they have to be respectful to the space and other tenants.”
“Given that the space [at 4 World Trade Center] is so large, a lot of their works have increased in scale.”
Cory Silverstein
The floor includes common areas to hang out in and furniture along with art storage and a janitor’s closet for washing brushes.
“Given that the space is so large, a lot of their works have increased in scale,” Silverstein observed.
Along with encouraging each other, the artists are making connections to art dealers, companies and even tenants’ employees who want to start collecting art but don’t know where to begin.
“It will positively impact those who can become patrons and friends with these artists,” he noted.
One visiting art dealer, who preferred to remain anonymous, bought every work from a 19-year-old Los Angeles-born painter, Joseph Olisaemeka Wilson.
Many of the artists have been inspired by the large space and its breathtaking views.
Brooklyn native Natalie Birinyi is working on a diptych of 4 World Trade Center as seen from Google Earth as part of a work titled “GLITCH — eye in the sky.”
“I love the meta element of painting the inside of the building through the satellite eye while I am in the building,” she said.
Maryam Turkey, an Iraqi refugee now based in Brooklyn, creates paper clay sculptures and paintings, the latest of which is called “Still.”
“ ‘Still’ is my reflection on the changes that happened to New York City commercial buildings due to the pandemic,” Turkey said.
Silverstein, whose day job is working on financing at Tishman Speyer, said that he hopes his program bucks some of the “negative connotations with regard to real state owners” and changes the paradigm.
“Silver Arts is a blueprint for us and we want to encourage other real estate owners to use this as a blueprint for them,” he said.
