Tucked away among the post-industrial buildings, auto mechanics, and restaurants, the neighborhood Hint House Artist Collective sits squarely in the shadow of Columbia’s Manhattanville campus expansion.
Hint House provides performance and studio space for around 40 artists, including visual artist Tamara Gayer and the musicians of the No Neck Blues Band. Located in a small brownstone on West 131st Street near 12th Avenue, the gallery lies in the Manhattanville project zone—the site of over a quarter century of upcoming construction.
Over the past several years, Gayer—who is also a member of Community Board 9—has been an outspoken critic of the University’s expansion, and has voiced concern about the fate of Hint House.
The Collective declined to speak with Spectator or admit reporters to the building. “We are not convinced that airing the process in the Spectator is an effective solution for us,” Gayer wrote in an e-mail.
According to Columbia spokesperson Victoria Benitez, Hint House “is on a month-to-month lease until the University requires the space,” though she would not elaborate on the University’s long-term plans for the Collective. Some artists and activists against the Manhattanville project fear that the future holds displacement.
Maritta Dunn, a member of the West Harlem Local Development Corporation, said of Hint House, “Nobody actually knows what is going to happen.” Still, “They are a small number of artists that are part of a bigger artistic community,” she noted. “We cannot be specific to them.”
The responsibility of the University to existing businesses in the expansion area is still under debate, though local activists said that they believe that the University should work with the artists. “Within the context of a new campus, Columbia should utilize its expertise to train entrepreneurs on how to run a business—the technical aspects,” CB9 Chair Pat Jones said. “These artists have mastered their crafts, but they still have to survive.” She added that Columbia should “help entrepreneurs and small businesses become self-sustaining.”
Members of the anti-Manhattanville project activist group Coalition to Preserve Community expressed deeper frustration with the expansion process. “The Hint House Artist Collective, combined with the lively activity of 12th Avenue, the inventive auto mechanics, and manufacturing businesses that have been in the area for years, is a winning combination that should not be displaced,” CPC leader Tom DeMott, CC ’80, said.
According to the University’s Manhattanville planning Web site, Columbia is “committed to supporting and building on the historical and economically important arts and culture aspects of Harlem.” The University has historically supported the arts in Harlem, with recent efforts including the display of local artists’ work in the lobby of Columbia’s West 125th Street Reality House and the “Evolution” exhibition of Harlem artists at two Medical Center spaces.
Still, in a speech delivered in 2005, Gayer accused the University of disregarding community artists by implying that the campus expansion will bring “cultural capital to an area which doesn’t really have it.”
news@columbiaspectator.com