Westbeth's interior courtyard. © Photo: Lindsay Pollock

Click here to watch video.

Westbeth is the largest and oldest artists’ cooperative in the country. It opened 1970 in an 1894 former Bell Telephone laboratory on Manhattan’s West Side. Architect Richard Meier did the conversion.

For quite a while I have been curious about these roughhewn, industrial buildings, plunked down in the ever-gentrifying West Village. Last week Westbeth, together with the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation, held its first public open house as a fundraiser for the preservation group, providing an opportunity for me to visit.

I brought my camera and here is a three minute video capturing some of what I saw.

Westbeth Open Studios from Lindsay Pollock on Vimeo.