The building at 5 West 19th Street was converted to a commercial coop in the early 80’s. Converting buildings to coop back then was very popular, more so in residential buildings, but still, in a few commercial buildings. I don’t know how many commercial coop buildings there are exactly, but it’s less than 1% of the overall total of office buildings in NYC. These conversions afforded small business owners the opportunity to control their future in a way they couldn’t have otherwise and some industries gravitated toward them more than others. Photographers were one group that seemed to buy these coops (printers were another) probably because they typically needed larger open spaces and would pioneer in areas that tended to evolve from downtrodden to fashionable where they were constantly getting priced out.
By buying, they could control their destiny.
This worked well for many years and the photographers at 5 West 19th Street prospered. What they couldn’t have known was the sea-change that would occur when digital photography caused the cost of a photograph to plummet, leading many photographers to have to change their business models. One of the changes was that a large studio space would become a luxury.
The lucky few who had purchased their space at 5 West 19th Street have been able to convert what might have been a burden into a valuable asset: a large loft floor in a very fashionable area of Manhattan that many companies were eager to occupy.
I’ve been fortunate to represent several of these photographers throughout the years and I have one now. In the accompanying picture, you can see the gorgeous wood floor, windows on all sides, and generous column spacing. It’s a classic loft in every sense of the word.