Karl Nussbaum

February 14, 2006 —Yesterday, WNYC’s Andrea Bernstein introduced 475 Dean Street. Until recently, the building was full of artists and musicians. It is now empty and will be knocked down if developer Forest City Ratner gets the necessary approvals to build a basketball arena and 17 high rise towers. Avant garde film maker Karl Nussbaum was one of the residents in this six-story former garment factory. But last spring he was given an ultimatum: clear out by early January, 2006. He was offered compensation. The developer promised to help him find a new apartment, and even said Nussbaum could move into one of its high rise towers if the project is completed. But Nussbaum wasn’t interested.

» In Ratner's Shadow: Karl Nussbaum, Part 1
» In Ratner's Shadow: Karl Nussbaum, Part 2
» In Ratner's Shadow: Caroline Glemann

Nussbaum: I was really adamant I needed work space. I have 13 foot ceilings and all the windows. I shoot all my films right in here so I couldn’t live in an apartment.

Host: That was last summer. When Andrea Bernstein spoke with him around Thanksgiving, his ideas had changed.

Reporter: When I next see Karl Nussbaum, it’s freezing. He sits me down in his kitchen under an old Pegasus, the old Mobil logo that he pulled out of the trash some years back.

Nussbaum: I found this sign and I put the light behind it so it sort of glows.

Reporter: Karl Nussbaum was one of a small movement of artists who in the 1980’s pushed out beyond Soho. They breathed new life into old factory buildings in Brooklyn like 475 Dean Street, with light and high ceilings and vast interior spaces. It wasn’t fancy, but Nussbaum happily rented his 2600 square feet for $2000 a month. Last fall he re-entered the real estate market.

Nussbaum: It’s sort of really eye opening because I’ve been here 18 years, so it’s hard to know what’s happening in real estate ‘till you go out there.

Reporter: Everything seemed too expensive, too fancy, or too cramped, or too remote. But for Nussbaum, the trauma of looking for a new loft was buffered by the offer of financial help from Forest City Ratner. Aware of the public criticism of its project, the developer promised Nussbaum and others it would subsidize rent in a new space. Nussbaum finally saw something in Clinton Hill that interested him.

Nussbaum: That was like the first time I got really excited about the possibilities of moving I kind of stayed up until 2 or 3 last night thinking about my new movie project and what I could be building and making right there in that space.

Reporter: Nussbaum knows he has a limited time in his new loft to get the shooting done.

Nussbaum: The whole plan is I’ll move into this loft for three, maybe four years while they build their new building. And they pay the rent difference in that time. And then when their building is done and they’ll put me in an apartment.

Reporter: I’m surprised to hear this. When the huge development was announced Nussbaum fought it. When he was offered the opportunity to live in a high rise apartment building, he flatly refused.

Nussbaum: At first I was really hesitant about the whole thing.

Reporter: But Nussbaum warmed to the Frank Gehry designs.

Nussbaum: And the more I hear about it like the park sounds really interesting. So I think it could be cool. And it’s going to give me stability it gives me security, for like an artist is big deal. The one thing that I’m really giving up is I won’t have a work space

Reporter: He says that will change his whole life.

Nussbaum: It’s like going to be more of an adult, like having a nice apartment I’m going to invest in some furniture for a change a couch instead of finding it on the street, a whole set of plates.

Reporter: But right now, he’s paring down his possessions. After he proudly shows me how much he’s packed already, he walks me outside, down a long gray industrial staircase.

We pass by a studio on the first floor – it’s been used as a work space by sculptor Louise Bourgeois. Like every other loft in the building it’s being emptied, dumpster by dumpster.

Bernstein: This one? Nussbaum: This is one and there’s another one over there. I mean look there’s a nice wooden whatever it is.

Nussbaum’s eye is drawn to a photo, in a cracked frame. He reads the inscription on the back

Nussbaum: “Dear Louise: Thank you for taking the time to spend with me reviewing my work. You gave me much encouragement to go back to Australia.” A lot of history, there in the trash.

Reporter: Nussbaum says it takes them two days to fill those dumpsters. Then they move them out, and move a fresh one in.

Mover: Start pushing ‘em out, look, push ‘em out, Brian give the tape, get out of here man, go get me a dolly man.

Reporter: Three weeks later, a few days after Christmas, the movers are in Nussbaum’s loft . The cereal boxes, the props, the Pegasus, everything has been removed from the walls and packed up.

Nussbaum: Yeah all gone. There’s like an echo in here, do you hear it? Eighteen years of echo.

Reporter: Nussbaum is standing at his full height in the near empty room, wearing a white tee-shirt and casting his eyes about. The floor is covered with moving debris and bits of old tape and stray pieces of board games.

Bernstein: Look at this. Nussbaum: Oh yeah “This was your life.” I used to save a lot of these. I think this is a Jack Chick Christian tract.

Reporter: And then, as the movers wrestle with the elevator, I walk down the stairs and out the chain link fence.

Three weeks later, I’m at his new, temporary front door.

Bernstein: Hi, how are you? Nussbaum: Come on in! Bernstein: Kind of different, huh? Nussbaum: Yeah.

Reporter: The room is long, like a bowling alley. Sun is streaming in through the windows, but they’re way at the end of a long hall-like room. Nussbaum says the last few weeks haven’t been so great.

Nussbaum: Even when I got here I started having panic attacks, when I had to run out of the house and was afraid to be alone. The whole packing thing brings up so many emotions about time and memory and what you’ve done with your life.

Reporter: Nussbaum vainly looks out his window, over the roofs of the Pratt Institute, his eye searching for the art deco Williamsburgh bank building. If the Ratner development is built, it will be dwarfed. But for now, it’s still the tallest building in Brooklyn. The tower had provided a point of reference for Nussbaum for 18 years. But he can’t see from here.

Nussbaum: I don’t know the neighborhood, I don’t feel like I belong here I just feel -- In fact when I was panicking and I couldn’t stay in the house I would go out walking and walking until I would see people and I ended up always back at my old house at 475 Dean.

Reporter: As Nussbaum wrestles with old memories, he takes me through his new place. Just past the kitchen, there’s a brand new chic couch, gray, with metal arms.

Nussbaum: That’s only half of it, too. There’s another half that’s coming. Check it out, its nice and soft.

Reporter: Nussbaum is already working on his new movie, about a spaceship that travels through the human body.

Nussbaum: And I’m going to shoot right in here. I already ordered my fetal Cyclops skull; it’s coming in the mail.

Reporter: He knows he needs to work quickly. This will be his last live/work space. After a few years here he’ll move into a small one-bedroom apartment, assuming the Ratner development gets built. Nussbaum will get a separate work space, with no windows.

Nussbaum: I kept arguing for comparable space for comparable price, but they wouldn’t budge. I was advised to take it we have to remember they have no obligation to help me or the other people at all.

Reporter: Nussbaum brings me back to his windows and we look out on an unusually mild winter day. He sighs as he gazes, yet again, in the direction of 475 Dean Street. He was part of a movement that reclaimed a neighborhood, only to become a victim of that success. But Nussbaum still thinks he’s lucky. With all the upheaval, with all the change, he gets something many artists don’t. He gets a rent stabilized apartment in New York City. For WNYC, I’m Andrea Bernstein.