On a brisk Friday morning in early March, James Fuentes led a parade of art workers, press and members of Japanese-American painter Kikuo Saito’s extended family from the painter’s basement studio in Soho to his new gallery in Tribeca.
The art dealer was the artist’s first time in the 2,500 square meter building Color Codes, a series of large-scale monochromatic paintings by Saito in the early 1990s. He was amazed by its high ceilings and the skylight in the back room, which allowed daylight to flood the entire space.
“I appreciate being centrally located, which we’ve never been,” Fuentes said of his move from the Lower East Side to Tribeca. “We have always accepted being on the sidelines. But this neighborhood has always had a tendency towards high-level discussions of art. It has a 50-year legacy of live workspaces for artists.’
Fuentes exhibited contemporary works on Delancey Street for 17 years before the contract expired. Instead of renovating, he found a space at 52 White Street in the heart of an area that has become a contender for New York’s contemporary galleries.
Nearly 70 galleries have sprung up in Tribeca in the past decade, including three more this month alone. After 17 years in Chelsea, Alexander Gray Associates moved its headquarters to a 7,500-square-foot space at 384 Broadway. This month, Bureau crossed town from the Lower East Side to 112 Duane Street, and Asya Geisberg moved to 45th Street after a decade in Chelsea.
Last autumn, a number of institutions also changed their location in the center of the city. Modern art powerhouse Schoelkopf Gallery closed its Upper East Side space for 390 Broadway, and like Tim Blum, split with his former partner and moved his New York operations to a 6,200-square-foot gallery at 9 White Street. Then Anat Ebgi Gallery in Los Angeles also moved into a 5,000-square-foot building at 372 Broadway before opening in January. And Jack Shainman is renovating a former DMV office inside the Clock Tower building at 46 Lafayette with an installation by artist Nick Cave for an official opening in September.
And the most anticipated opening in the area may be Marian Goodman, which moved its flagship 149-year-old Grosvenor building and will debut 30,000 square feet of two-story gallery, observation rooms and administrative offices later this year.
A cluster of established, independent galleries springing up beneath Manhattan’s Canal Street may soon end Chelsea’s reign as the center of the commercial art world. But the people of Tribeca don’t call it a rivalry.
“It’s a very viable alternative,” said Jonathan Travis, a broker with Redwood Property Group, which represents dozens of galleries that have moved to Tribeca. Hyperallergic. He added that the neighborhood has a “real New York feel.”
“The European galleries that open in Chelsea think that’s where Larry is [Gagosian], [David] Zwirner, and Hauser and Wirth, so they should be there, but the galleries that are based here understand the value that Tribeca brings,” he said. “It’s not just an area to go see art, it has a much different energy.”
Sometimes gallery owners were looking for cheaper rent, but Tribeca isn’t necessarily a place to find a better deal than Chelsea. Prices for retail space in both neighborhoods range from $100 to $120 per square foot, according to Travis, while the Lower East Side doesn’t tend to be more expensive at $80 to $100 per square foot.
Others wanted to renovate their spaces. When the Bureau’s lease on Norfolk Street was up, landlord Gabrielle Giattino wanted to double the rent. He explored Lower Manhattan and Tribeca’s cast-iron buildings boasted 45-by-45-foot storefronts and 15-foot ceilings, while the Lower East Side often marketed cramped 25-by-100-foot shoeboxes. It eventually signed a deal for a site that nearly tripled the size of its previous location.
“A lot of my artists did two, three, four shows in that space and it became routine after a certain point,” Giattino said. “I knew Tribeca was going there with a critical mass going. It was a completely different opportunity for my artists to work with a large space.’
Others left because they felt Chelsea had changed significantly in recent years. When Asya Geisberg opened on 23rd Street in late 2010, its neighbors were several other small galleries, such as Koenig & Clinton and Daniel Reich. Then in 2019, its owner announced that he wanted to replace the gallery space on the ground floor with a gym and a pet store for the new apartment building under construction. He stayed for a few years during the pandemic before a space on White Street fell into his lap.
Now Geisberg’s residents include independent gallery owners and a wealthier class of New Yorkers who live in nearby lofts. Some of them welcomed him to the block in his first week.
“The people who come in who live on the street seem more sophisticated than Chelsea. This feels like a more authentic art district,” he said. “Chelsea…doesn’t seem like the right place for a new program with emerging and international artists who haven’t shown in America or group shows.”
Fuentes is still adjusting to his new home, which he said had a healthy mix of established, mid-career and up-and-coming gallerists running art spaces.
“We’re only eight blocks from our old gallery, but it’s interesting that New York creates these zones that are so distinct from each other,” he said. “Even Soho and Tribeca are basically the same, but Canal Street is like a river. Once you cross the canal, you’re suddenly in a completely different neighborhood.’
