Walentas wanted Dumbo to be successful, but he did not want Dumbo to precisely follow the model of SoHo. While it’s true that Dumbo was started by artists who came as squatters living illegally in lofts the way they did in SoHo, instead of trying to throw them out at the beginning, Walentas actually tried to bring in more.Īnd then they gave long-term leases to certain nonprofit galleries and other organizations to ensure they wouldn’t be priced out.
DUMBO HALL FREE
First, he seeded the neighborhood by giving arts organizations, galleries, theatre companies, and so forth space-for free or very cheap. He knew how important arts and culture were to creating neighborhoods. Here we come back to David Walentas and the fact that he was not only more patient than most real estate developers he was smarter than most real estate developers. Although both neighborhoods have experienced gentrification-making them less livable for the artists who once occupied them-Dumbo was able to retain its artistic community much longer than SoHo. You draw a lot of comparisons between SoHo and Dumbo.
What I meant by that remark is that you see in this place-which is really only a few blocks-the whole arc of American cities: starting out as a little village, then industrialization of the waterfront, then abandonment and difficulty and struggle, and then renewal where people live with a recreational waterfront. You write that “Dumbo is a metaphor for the rediscovery of the American downtown.” What did you mean?
DUMBO HALL FULL
Real estate isn’t always full of interesting stories. It almost fell apart so many times, and he just kept struggling with it. One guy sort of discovers it and turns it into a neighborhood over a whole generation-the story of David Walentas getting it and imagining what it could be and then having the patience to see it through. The other thing about it is that it’s just such an interesting story. I love the idea of this place that, in some ways, seems so intensely New York, and yet it’s different from any other place in New York. I love the combination of dense industrial urbanity and the beautiful waterfront and the bridges. I’ve never lived there, but I’ve always thought it was a wonderful place. He credits Walentas’s intuition, vision, and patience for creating a neighborhood that, today, is a chorus of small businesses, cultural attractions, and dazzling residential real estate.
In the new book from Rizzoli, DUMBO: The Making of a Neighborhood and the Rebirth of Brooklyn, the architecture critic Paul Goldberger outlines the enclave’s reinvention-from 1700s village to industrial waterfront to one of Brooklyn’s priciest residential neighborhoods-alongside an array of archival and modern drawings and photographs. In the late 1970s, when Walentas first crossed the Brooklyn Bridge into the former hub of industry, Dumbo-named by residents in 1978 after an acronym for Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass-was desolate, save for a few remaining businesses that had resisted the area’s deindustrialization, as well as the artists who moved into those high-ceilinged former workspaces. It’s also synonymous with Walentas, who, along with his wife, Jane, and son, Jed, has spent the past four decades coaxing Dumbo into a place to “Live, Work & Play,” per Jane’s early motto for the neighborhood. Today, the picturesque Brooklyn waterfront enclave is known for its ritzy real estate, cultural attractions, and Instagram-famous vistas.
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