Victor Jeffreys II has lived — and worked out of — the same Manhattan Avenue apartment for the last two decades. The space has allowed him ample room for whatever project might be occupying his time — whether that’s making the costumes for a Nile Harris show, working on his own paintings, or collaborating on a ballet with Alexander Ekman. Still, he’d always hoped for a proper studio, something few working artists can actually afford in New York City. A few months ago, his landlord, David Alani, came to him with an idea. Might he like to rent a 6,000-square-foot space — the site of a former Santander Bank — for $1 per month? Sure, he said.
I spoke to Jeffreys about how this highly unusual situation came about and what he plans to do with this surplus.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
Tell me about your living situation.
I moved into my apartment around October 2005. I found it on Craigslist. It was a four-story building with this huge Santander Bank downstairs. Each floor is two apartments, but back then, it had been chopped up further by a bunch of college students. It was a wild place. Over time, it’s changed. They renovated all but two of the apartments. I’ve lived in my apartment for 18 years and I haven’t had to move. I’m so fortunate for that. I wish it was rent-controlled. It is not. My rent has definitely gone up. But I’ve developed such a wonderful relationship with my landlord. About four months ago, I went to the gym in the morning and came back and the doors to the bank were wide open. The ATMs were gone and every red Santander sign had been painted over black. I called my landlord David and was like, “Hey, it kind of looks like the bank has been robbed.” And he was like, “Oh, I’m so sorry. I should have told you — they’re done with their lease and moving out.” About a month later, I was renegotiating my own lease and we were chatting and I asked about the space. I was like, “Hey, have you found a new tenant?” He’s like, “No, not yet.” As you know, the current commercial real-estate market is very soft — I walk outside of my building and I can see three or four other vacant commercial spaces. The space is huge, so I think it could take a while to find someone. He said he thought it would be cool to have an artist down there. I was like, “I could do that.” David knows me as a person who makes art, and he was like, “Oh my God, I’m an idiot, obviously you could do that, couldn’t you?”
So then he just let you move into it?
Then I spent two-ish months convincing these guys — it’s David and his brother Eric, and then there’s an outside partner — to let me use it as my studio, with the ultimate goal of being able to open it to the public. You have to keep in mind that if they allow me to do this, all they’re doing is opening themselves up to risk. Soon, I’ll get an insurance policy, which will then allow me to have the public in. And then I’ll sign a short-term lease with him, which I’ve been told will be like a dollar a month.
Wow, that’s unheard of. Are they looking for tenants right now to fill a space, or is it like you get it for a year?
The idea is that if they find someone, I’m out. I kind of remind myself it’s just such a magical thing and I’m so grateful for it. It can totally disappear tomorrow.
How’d you set it up?
I spent a total of $27 on the entire space, $11 of which were for pushpins. The rest of the stuff — couches, tables — has been given to me from friends. One can do a lot with very little.
Is there still old bank stuff there?
There are counters that are still there, the safety-deposit box safe is still there, and that’s kind of it. In the little area where the ATMs used to be, that’s cordoned off. I’ve given it to my friend Charlene Incarnate, who put together an installation. But in my mind, it’s like, I’m not going to replace, for instance, the gross carpet, because that’ll put me back $30,000 and the whole thing could disappear tomorrow.
That makes sense. What are you doing with the rest of the space?
I reserve a little spot in the front window where I paint. I spend three or four hours a day down here. Everything in the space — drawings, paintings, signs, sculptures — has been made in the space. My apartment is very big and I could never say I don’t have space to make things. But having a separate space from my home has definitively changed my work and my practice. I come down and just do three hours of straight painting, which I rarely did up in my apartment since I’m so distracted with all the shit in my house.
What are your plans when you can open it up to the public?
I’ll start doing performances and stuff. I imagine I will have some type of opening. And otherwise, when I’m around, I’ll just have the doors open. Of course, there’s a lot of weird self-imposed pressure — it’s such a wonderful opportunity, so it would be very easy for me to be like, okay, what’s the business? How am I going to extract money out of this? I could have a gallery. I know tons of people who make $30,000 paintings and probably more people who buy them. We live in an expensive city and it is easy to take opportunities like this and only think about how one can extract capital from them. I am actively trying not to think that way. I want to give back as opposed to take. I have no financial pressure from renting the space, so I’m trying to leave it open and kind of see what happens. That may be a bad decision — maybe I’m squandering the opportunity to do something. But I want to see what kind of happens if you just open and see what the community does, how it will kind of form itself. A couple weeks ago, because I have all these pots, I wrote a little sign saying I was looking for clippings. I would come downstairs in the morning and neighbors would leave me clippings and flowers. I went to the garden store down the street to buy the soil, and as I was paying, the owner of the store came out and he’s like, “Don’t charge them. I see what you’re doing. I like what you’re doing over there.” So they gave me the dirt.
That’s so nice. Have you had other signs in the window?
At the very beginning, I made a Google phone number and I put it up in the window. I’ve made so many installations and they’ve changed so much, so I was like, “Text me.” I was in conversation with 30 or 40 random people that I do not know that I would text back and forth with. And one day, David saw and was like, “Hey, I love what you’re doing, except can you take the phone number down?” I wasn’t going to fight him about it. I was like, sure, whatever. And then he was like, “I’m going to want you to make a sign, if that’s okay.” So a couple weeks later he calls and is like, “Okay, Victor, I’m ready for the sign. I want it to say ‘Not Prime Retail’ with my phone number and email address on it.” So that is currently what the sign says. And I love it. I think for now I’ll call the space Not Prime Retail.