Virtual Memories Show 632:
Peter Trachtenberg
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“Westbeth was designed as an egalitarian community. . . . In any community, you have to have people who are actually involved in its maintenance.”
With his amazing new book THE TWILIGHT OF BOHEMIA: Westbeth and the Last Artists in New York (Black Sparrow Press), Peter Trachtenberg explores the 50+ years of history for Westbeth Artists Housing in the far West Village, the role of the arts in New York City, and the ways we build & sustain community. We get into his long-term history with Westbeth, how this book’s was born from an essay about the suicide of his friend and Westbeth resident Gay Milius, how Westbeth managed to survive a series of financial crises over the decades before finding a sustainable model, and how architect Richard Meier repurposed the Bell Labs complex into affordable artists’ housing in the 1960s. We talk about Westbeth’s requirement that residents be professional artists and what that came to mean over the years (esp. when some residents’ productivity diminished), what it’s like to raise families in Westbeth, and how the community handled generational change. We also discuss how Westbeth reflects New York back on itself, how Vin Diesel’s vandalism as a kid growing up in Westbeth led to his acting career, how the Village’s Halloween parade originated there, how I stumbled across Westbeth in 2017 during — what else? — a podcast, how we build artistic communities when we don’t have geographic proximity, whether there’s a secret radioactive room left over from the Bell Labs years (!), and more. Give it a listen! And go read THE TWILIGHT OF BOHEMIA!
(And go listen to our 2014 and lockdown conversations!)
“This book made me understand that a lot of the categories in my mind of what is fine art and what is applied art are arbitrary, that I do not know what is going to be great.”
“It really became a battle for New York real estate.”
“My idea of how I was going to spend my old age was teaching at Bennington and playing with the Dog House Band a couple times a year.”
Enjoy the conversation! Then check out the archives for more great episodes!
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About our Guest
Peter Trachtenberg was born and grew up in New York City and began spending time in Westbeth in the late 1970s. He lived there (illegally) from 1995 to 2006. He is the author of three earlier books of nonfiction — Another Insane Devotion: On the Love of Cats and Persons, The Book of Calamities: Five Questions about Suffering and Its Meaning, and 7 Tattoos: A Memoir in the Flesh — and the recipient of awards that include Whiting and Guggenheim Fellowships and a Phi Beta Kappa award.
Follow Peter on Instagram, and subscribe to his newsletter. And go listen to our 2014 and lockdown conversations.
Credits: This episode’s music is Fella by Hal Mayforth, used with permission from the artist. The conversation was recorded at Peter’s home on a pair of Blue enCORE 200 microphones feeding into a Zoom PodTrak P4 digital recorder & interface. I recorded the intro and outro on a Heil PR-40 Dynamic Studio Recording Microphone feeding into a Zoom PodTrak P4. All processing and editing done in Adobe Audition CC. Photo of Peter by someone; photo of Westbeth courtyard by me. It’s on my instagram.