11 Spring Street, Soho.
Dec. 16th, 2006 08:01 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
When Elias Cummings development, bought 11 Spring Street in NYC, they noticed that the outside of the abandoned building was attracting interesting and evolving street art. They were intrigued by the skill of the work, and the way that the street artists were unconcerned with the inherent transient nature of their efforts. Most firms would post plywood fencing up to keep the "vandals" away, but Elias Cummings is smarter than that.
They did some research, and called up the Wooster Collective a sort of street art advocacy group, and the firm invited pretty much every street artist in the area (and with the help of the Wooster Collective, the scope soon expanded to include the best street artists from elsewhere in the world...) to come inside the building and go nuts.

The results opened this weekend, and word of mouth has ensured that far more people than planned have shown up. The NYC art scene is already calling it one of the most energetic and exciting artistic events since the days of Basquiat and Warhol, and there is a flickr pool showing the results
The most interesting thing, is that the development work will not remove the art from the walls, but will develop over the art, making the building into a sort of art time capsule.
They did some research, and called up the Wooster Collective a sort of street art advocacy group, and the firm invited pretty much every street artist in the area (and with the help of the Wooster Collective, the scope soon expanded to include the best street artists from elsewhere in the world...) to come inside the building and go nuts.
The results opened this weekend, and word of mouth has ensured that far more people than planned have shown up. The NYC art scene is already calling it one of the most energetic and exciting artistic events since the days of Basquiat and Warhol, and there is a flickr pool showing the results
The most interesting thing, is that the development work will not remove the art from the walls, but will develop over the art, making the building into a sort of art time capsule.