Miriam Chaiken is the author of “Creative Ozone – the Artists of Westbeth” published in 2025 Fordham University Press

“Westbeth is just like the villages I studied in Africa. It’s just like every village where, for better or for worse, everybody knows every others’ business. To quote Nadia Dajani, ‘Everybody’s up in each others’ cornflakes’. But that’s both the best thing and maybe the worse thing for being in a village. That you’re part of this community of people who look after each other. And that’s been a really important lesson for me to learn about why Westbeth works so well and why it’s a place that should be emulated by other communities.”

Peter Trachtenberg is the author of “The Twilight of Bohemia: Westbeth and the Last Artists in New York”, published by Black Sparrow Press in 2025

“Westbeth used to be my home. So I’m visiting a place I used to live… To me this building is a model of what I hope the kind of housing may be revived under a new mayor, like Mamdani, who understands the vital role the arts and artists have in the life of this city and also in its economic life. ”

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Photo on Home Page by David Plakke May 2025