Brant Foundation Art Study Center

421 East 6th Street | East Village | built 1920

Open on the map4 entries

The lot about 1940
About 1940. Via 1940s.nyc
The lot about 1985
About 1985. Via 80s.nyc

The city photographed every building for its tax records around 1940 and again in the 1980s. NYC Municipal Archives.

Written with AI from the source each entry cites, then fact-checked.

  1. 1919

    New York Edison replaces two tenements with a four-story transformer building

    Read more

    In 1919 New York Edison had two buildings, probably tenements, demolished to make way for a fireproof transformer station designed by William Whitehill. A 1919 Board of Appeals resolution describes it as a four-story building, and records that the buildings superintendent first denied the permit, apparently over fireproofing and electrical-fire concerns. The company's own history dates the Sixth Street Station's opening to 1920.

    Source: buildingblocks.villagepreservation.org

  2. 1963

    The Edison substation is converted into a photo studio and offices

    A 1963 alteration application changed the use of the former transformer building to a photo studio with developing, printing and offices. The work also demolished a 1926 storage building that Edison had put up on the adjacent lot, replacing it with a loading area and a concrete ramp.

    Source: buildingblocks.villagepreservation.org

  3. 1980

    Artist Walter De Maria buys the Con Edison substation and makes it his studio

    In 1980 the artist Walter De Maria bought a four-story Con Edison substation of 16,400 square feet at 421 East 6th Street, plus the neighboring lot at 419, and used it as his studio until his death in 2013. He is best known for The Lightning Field (1977), a grid of 400 stainless steel posts, and in 1965 he briefly drummed for the Primitives, a band that included Lou Reed and John Cale. Collector Peter Brant later bought the studio for $27 million.

    Source: Wikipedia

  4. 2019

    March

    The Brant Foundation opens in the former substation with a Basquiat retrospective

    The Brant Foundation bought the building in August 2014, and architect Richard Gluckman renovated it into a space of about 16,000 square feet, with 7,000 square feet of galleries over four floors. The landmarked north facade, the interior stair and the manually operated 50-ton gantry were kept and restored. It opened in March 2019 with a Jean-Michel Basquiat exhibition curated by Dieter Buchhart, which drew thousands of people to the neighborhood.

    Source: Village Preservation

Further reading

Nearby

All 572 buildings with stories in East Village