200px|thumb|rightWestbeth Artists Housing, located at 463 West Street in the West Village neighborhood of the New York City borough of Manhattan, is the largest such community in the world. This low to middle income rental housing was developed with the assistance of the Kaplan Fund and federal funds from the National Endowment for the Arts in 1968 to house artists, their families, and their studios.

History

Westbeth is among the first examples of adaptive reuse of industrial buildings for artistic and residential use in the United States. It is a complex of 13 buildings in Manhattan's West Village, comprising an entire city block, bounded on the north by Bethune Street; on the east by Washington Street; on the south by Bank Street; and on the west by West Street. The complex was originally the site of Bell Laboratories (1868-1966), one of the world's most important industrial research centers and home to many inventions, including the vacuum tube, the condenser microphone, an early version of television, and the transistor. The complex was vacated by Bell in the middle 1960s, and remained empty until the Westbeth project started later in the decade. Using seed money from the J.M. Kaplan Fund and help and encouragement from the National Council for the Arts (which has since become the National Endowment for the Arts), an ambitious renovation project designed to create live-work spaces for 384 artists of all disciplines was commenced. The project was the first significant public commission of Richard Meier, who later won the Pritzker Prize for architecture and is still a significant figure in modern architecture. Westbeth opened in 1970 for artists, dancers, musicians, actors, writers and film makers.

In 2009, after three years of intensive research funded by the JM Kaplan Fund, the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation (GVSHP) commissioned historic preservationist Andrew Dolkart to write a report to nominate Westbeth for listing on the State and National Register of Historic Places. The research included interviews with several key figures in the conversion of the former Bell Telephone Labs to the nation's first subsidized housing complex for artists, including architect Richard Meier, Choreographer Merce Cunningham, and Joan Davidson. In response to a previous broader effort to preserve the historic character of the Far West Village, in 2005 New York City promised to landmark the Westbeth complex, although as of October 2009 the city has not yet landmarked the complex. In September 2009, citing the "extraordinary significance" required to list sites on the State and National Register of Historic Places which are less than fifty years old, the New York State Historic Preservation Board unanimously approved the nomination of Westbeth to the State Register of Historic Places. The listing creates new opportunities for funding for Westbeth since it can now apply for historic preservation grants.

Artists of all disciplines are admitted as tenants in Westbeth after review by a committee of tenants in their discipline. They must also meet certain income requirements at the time of admission. (The waiting list for new residential tenants was closed in 2007.)

In addition to its residential component, there are also large and small commercial spaces, performance spaces, and rehearsal and artists' studios .

Westbeth is owned and operated by Westbeth Corp. Housing Development Fund Corp. Inc., a New York not-for-profit corporation governed by an unpaid, volunteer board of directors. Its operation is regulated by the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development under the Sec. 221(d)(3) program of the National Housing Act. It is also subject to oversight by the New York City housing department and the Charities Bureau of the New York State attorney general.

Organizations

The , elected by the residential tenants, provides free cultural events to the public such as readings, performances, and films, and runs the Westbeth Art Gallery, which exhibits the work of both resident and outside artists. The Council receives grants from the offices of NYC Council Speaker Christine Quinn and State Sen. Thomas Duane, as well as public funding from the NYC Department of Cultural Affairs. In 2008, the Council was awarded a major grant from the Pollack Krasner Foundation for the Council's official website - . The website hosts individual artists' pages showing the work of its artist-residents and publicizes events and exhibitions sponsored by the Council. The Council also functions as the tenants association for the residential tenants. Other tenant groups include the Westbeth Artists Committee and the Westbeth Artists in Residence.

Westbeth is also home to a number of major cultural organizations, including The New School for Drama, the Merce Cunningham Dance Company, the Cherry Pit Stage of the Cherry Lane Theatre, the Brecht Forum, and Congregation Beth Simchat Torah, the first LGBT synagogue in Greenwich Village.

Resident Artists of Note

Westbeth Artists Housing has been home to a number of influential artists including Diane Arbus, Gil Evans, Moses Gunn, Vin Diesel, David Del Tredici, Billy Harper, Joseph Chaikin, Hans Haacke, Robert De Niro, Sr., Ed Sanders, Ralph Lee, Nick Carone, Karl Bissinger, John Dobbs, William Kennon, Herman Rose, Isabelle Case Borgatta, Anthony Sorce, Christina Maile, Edith Stephen, Toni Dallton, Robert Beauchamp, , Arnold Wechsler, Jon D'Orazio, Gayle Kirschenbaum, and Anne Tabachnick.