Long Island: Portrait of a Village as an Arts Haven

By MARCELLE S. FISCHLER The opportunity to live and work in a 45-unit housing project designed for artists is drawing creative types to Patchogue, N.Y.
----------
PATCHOGUE

CHIP HUNTER, an artist in Patchogue, was thinking about relocating to Huntington when he heard that Artspace Projects, a Minneapolis-based nonprofit real estate developer for the arts, was considering an affordable live-work development for artists in his village. Mr. Hunter, 48, who has a mosaic, stained-glass and stonework showroom on Main Street, decided to stay.

Artspace, which owns and manages 18 artist housing projects nationally from Washington State to Bridgeport, Conn., painstakingly rehabilitates abandoned historic buildings into affordable loft-style dwellings, transforming blighted areas with a SoHo effect.

“It will draw artists from all over New York,” Mr. Hunter said. “Artspace may be a catalyst to help the artists work together.”

Artspace recently completed a survey of artists across the region to try to gauge interest in the Patchogue live-work development.

Proponents believe it could become a catalyst for the arts in Suffolk County. “It will be an incredible anchor for the village and set the pace for Patchogue to become an artists’ colony and develop a personality and make it more of a destination spot,” Mr. Hunter said.

According to Teri Deaver, director of consulting and new projects for Artspace, “Economic redevelopment in an area is often an outcome of this type of project.” Artspace, which was founded in 1979, works with cities, private developers, nonprofit groups and historic preservationists.

“Some communities want projects like this because they are looking for an identity,” Ms. Deaver added, “or some communities want to strengthen their identity that they already have in terms of the arts.”

A new identity is what Mayor Paul V. Pontieri envisions for this village of 12,000 set on 2.2 square miles, with a ferry terminal to the Fire Island National Seashore on the Patchogue River and 29 acres of waterfront park on the Great South Bay.

In the late 1800s and early 1900s, Patchogue, which is about 55 miles from Midtown Manhattan, was the last stop on the Long Island Rail Road and a summer colony with 1,000 hotel rooms. “We were the Hamptons,” Mr. Pontieri said. “That was our identity.”

When the railroad line was extended to Montauk, tourists started vacationing farther east, and the hotels became boarding houses or were shuttered. So in the 1920s, Patchogue made its first transition, becoming one of Long Island’s major shopping districts, with J. C. Penney, Woolworth’s and Swezey’s department stores.

But the opening of big-box stores north of the village on Sunrise Highway in the 1980s caused another shift, again robbing Patchogue of its cachet. The Smith Haven and Bay Shore malls lured shoppers away, leaving a blight of vacancies on Main Street. “Our identity had gone from tourist to commercial retail to nothing,” said Mr. Pontieri, 59.

The rebirth in 1999 of the Patchogue Theater for the Performing Arts, originally a 1921 vaudeville house and later a big-screen movie theater and triplex, has started to revive Main Street, Mr. Pontieri said. In the last two years, five restaurants have opened.

The village invested $5 million into the 1,250-seat theater, which is used by local dance troupes as well as the Gateway Playhouse, a Bellport-based equity theater, which stages Broadway-style shows like “Miss Saigon” in Patchogue during the summer months and holiday season.
But that is not enough. “The theater as an art space can’t stand alone without other things around it,” Mr. Pontieri said.

Hoping that new housing for artists could be completed in two years, Mr. Pontieri has raised $75,000 and secured commitments for the rest of the $450,000 that an Artspace project would cost the village. Officials believe the project could ultimately cost tens of millions of dollars, but Artspace has yet to select a site or a design.

Three locations are under consideration. The prime candidate is the original 1907 Patchogue library, which has columns and arched windows and neo-Classical design, and a more modern addition next to it, which could be rebuilt as a residential tower, encompassing half a block of vacant buildings in the heart of downtown.

Two vacant lots owned by the village are the other possibilities. One is on Lake Street, down the block from the old library. Another, on Terry Street, might incorporate two mill houses once used by workers in the local lace mill, which closed in 1954 on the site of what is now Briarcliffe College, a career-oriented school.

The project would create about 45 residential units and draw artists from Manhattan to Montauk, said Gerard J. Crean, a village trustee.

While survey results are not complete, Ms. Deaver said, more than 300 artists responded, which is considered “a strong return.”

In a typical Artspace project, the units tend to be bigger than traditional affordable housing and incorporate studio and living spaces with lots of natural light and open floor plans. Retail space on the first floor is often used for galleries, with community space set aside for workshops, classes and public arts works.

“The housing we create is by design attractive to artists,” Ms. Deaver said. Artspace keeps rents affordable by financing the projects with a mix of public and private loans and private donations.
Artists across the spectrum — writers, sculptors, painters, filmmakers, photographers, actors, costume designers — are welcome.

There is no admissions jury: artists are vetted to determine their commitment to their art form, Ms. Deaver said. To qualify financially, they must earn about 60 percent of median income. For a family of four, the annual income limit would be $56,280.
Michelle Stark, director of Suffolk County’s office of film and cultural affairs, expressed the hope that Artspace would attract businesses related to the arts and lure enterprises like advertising and filmmaking.

It may also help to stem the tide of people 18 to 34, who according to the Long Island Index, an annual study of economic and social trends, are flowing off the Island, partly because they cannot afford to live here. Steve Levy, the Suffolk County executive, called Artspace “a wonderful way to provide affordable housing.”

James Morgo, Suffolk’s commissioner of economic development, said artists could help to spark a downtown revival. “By bringing these folks downtown,” he said, “you are not only creating affordable homes but you are also creating this vibrancy in the downtown.”

Leonardo Liguori, 46, a filmmaker, photographer and writer in Mastic Beach, said he was “extremely intrigued” by the possibility of living in an artists’ community.

“Just the exchange of ideas, thoughts or arguments stimulates artists,” said Mr. Liguori, whose 1996 film, “Lace Mill,” was made in Patchogue. In his view, artists need “such a community, where your neighbors are all artists and they can invite you in to get feedback.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/06/realestate/06lizo.html?_r=2&emc=eta1&oref=slogin&oref=slogin