The Twilight of Bohemia

An intimate history of America’s first publicly funded artists’ housing project and its residents that casts light on the precarious place of art-makers in a changing New York. Westbeth Artists Housing was founded in 1970 to provide affordable housing for artists and their families. It occupies a full city block in what back then was one of New York’s less desirable neighborhoods, the desolate far-West Village. Over the next fifty years, the building complex served as a Great Society for bohemia