A widely shared image of the flooding along Van Brundt street in Red Hook, Brooklyn, where the storm surge brought saltwater into Pier Glass (farthest building) and TokenNYC (closer building), two art and design studios where the high-water mark is five or six feet in places.
The art world clean-up that began around New York City after Hurricane Sandy is continuing on this, the second weekend since the storm. In Chelsea, galleries have pumped out basements and drywall contractors are busy replacing the sodden interior walls of low-lying gallery spaces, where the flooding was worse the farther west you go. Under the Brooklyn side of the Manhattan Bridge, nonprofit art center Smack Mellon’s lower-level artists studios were completely flooded, damaging all of the work of its seven artists in residence. But few artist studios in New York City were as badly impacted as two neighboring glass studios in Red Hook, Brooklyn, where the waters of New York Harbor surged into the first-floors and wreaked havoc that is still being assessed.
The interior of Pier Glass looked more like it was hit by a cyclone than a devastating storm surge with heavy industrial equipment tossed around like toys. photo: alison ruzsa
In 1994, Mary Ellen Buxton-Kutch, and her husband, Kevin Buxton-Kutch, set up Pier Glass, a hot glass studio in a Civil War-era pier jutting out into the waters of the Upper Bay. They were among the early pioneers in the resettling of this gritty waterfront neighborhood in Brooklyn’s Red Hook section. For nearly 20 years at this location, they worked on their blown, cut, and polished glass artwork, which they show at art and craft fairs around the U.S., as well as on commission projects for architects, designers, and major museums, such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art. As the neighborhood around it gentrified, Pier Glass became a stop for the many sightseers wandering among the artisanal shops and restaurants of this up-and-coming area, where the public could visit the gallery or sign up for glassblowing lessons. The Buxton-Kutches sublet some of their studio space to practicing artists Alison Ruzsa and Kevin Scanlan, and the studio grew to several kilns, major glass coldworking equipment, in addition to a sizable pot furnace.
This planter had stood outside the waterfront glass studio of Pier Glass, but was discovered six blocks away when the waters receded. photo: mary ellen buxton-kutch
Then, on October 29th, the high winds of Hurricane Sandy created an unprecedented storm surge that crested even the most careful fortifications against the floodwaters. The 150-year-old building that housed Pier Glass has floodgates, barriers on doors and windows that can be closed to keep back rising tides, but they are only 20-inches tall. The surging water easily crested that defense, and ripped the massive steel security door from its hinges. The surge was so intense, it left the planters usually out front of the glass studio on a street corner six blocks away.
Amidst all the disarray were surprises, such as this table where a vase remained where it had stood before the deluge, while a half-ton table-saw across the studio was tossed onto its side. photo: mary ellen buxton-kutch
The damage inside was astonishing, not only for the devastation but also the miraculous survival of delicate objects, such as a 1929 Venini mirror that was being restored on a bench, and which was moved by the swirling waters but left in place when the waters receded. Some finished vessels on a shelf were left still upright on a table, an amazing surprise considering the destruction all around the studio.
“We felt we could handle up to a 3-foot tidal surge,” Mary Ellen Buxton-Kutch told the GLASS Quarterly Hot Sheet in a telephone interview about their preparations for the hurricane. Hurricane Irene in 2011 had seen 10 inches of water on the floor of their studio, but nothing like this. Because of the intricate voltage converters and transformers in their old building, there was still no electric almost two weeks after the hurricane, and, obviously, no heat. Along with her husband, and with the help of Scanlan and Ruzsa, the focus was still on figuring out what was salvageable and what would join the 50 cubic yards of debris they had removed so far. Everything that holds water — drywall, books, paper, soft brick — has to be tossed as everything sodden is already growing aggressive mold.
Saltwater fills the crucible of the Pier Glass furnace. photo: mary ellen buxton-kutcher
From the minor flooding during Hurricane Irene, they know that wet bricks or kiln shelves are not useable as the saltwater turns to steam long after these materials seem to have dried out, and the result is work ruined by a layer of salt. Soft brick, Fiberfrax, and other expensive kiln and furnace parts will all have to be replaced, and heating elements and controllers for the seven kilns in the shop may or may not be able to be cleaned and reused.
“We lost so much — even all our hot gloves are gone,” says Mary Ellen. “And all the pipes are rusty, salted inside and out. Look up the prices on Cutting Edge pipes, and you get an idea of what we’re up against. We’re still in the process of applying for every kind of grant.” The focus is now on rebuilding the studio so that they can go back to work fulfilling orders and have the income to pay bills and the massive expenses that will be required to recover.
As if the damage to the studio weren’t enough, the Buxton-Kutches also live in a garden-level apartment in the Sea Gate section of Coney Island, an area where the damage from Hurricane Sandy was even more severe. Three blocks from the ocean, they are better off than those with waterfront property, many of whose houses were washed away, but they saw about a foot of flooding in their home (thanks to a system of sandbags that spared them much worse flooding their neighbors experienced) and they remain without power and heat at home and at their workspace.
“We go home and have a generator that we have to turn on,” says Mary Ellen. “It’s like camping indoors, and that’s exhausting because everything takes so much longer. And then you come here, there’s no heat or anything. It’s harder because you’re used to a hot shop, you’re used to that warmth, but instead it’s just damp through and through. You look over at the furnace and it’s cold.”
In the short term, the Kutches are going to continue fulfilling orders at other shops, and Mary Ellen speaks gratefully about generous offers of help from nearby glass facilities. She expects they will be doing work at the hotshop facilities at Brooklyn Glass and the coldworking shop at UrbanGlass (the nonprofit art center that publishes the Hot Sheet). Their longtime supplier Spruce Pine is sending a donated shipment of batch. (Editor’s Note: Anyone interested in loaning equipment or donating materials can call 718-369-3645 or email buxtonkutch@gmail.com to get in touch.)
The equipment at the collaborative glass and metal shop of McLeod and Tecosky, which they share with the principals of TokenNYC design, which was disassembled and carefully cleaned to save as much as possible from the corrosive effects of saltwater. photo: james mcleod
Practically next door to Pier Glass, artists James McLeod and Leo Tecosky assessed the damage to their glass collaborative studio, which they share with designers Will Kavesh and Emrys Berkower of Token NYC. In August 2011, McLeod and Tecosky brought all their equipment and work to the building at 481 Van Brunt Street to work in an environment of collaboration and support with fellow artists and designers. Their impressive array of diverse tools and machinery was tossed around in the tidal surge, the saltwater penetrating into tools, equipment and electronics. McLeod and Tecosky are also members of Floating World, an international network of glass artists, and the name of their organization may never have seemed as apt as when they came to their studios to take stock of the damage.
“I was in shock, and probably still am,” Tecosky told the Hot Sheet. “Based on what happened with Hurricane Irene, we anticipated minimal damage, and we prepared exponentially more than anybody else on the pier. It was awesome in its force, the ocean came inside the building, we didn’t expect five feet of water in the shop.”
“For the first couple days, it looked like everything was lost,” McLeod told the Hot Sheet. “The big thing we have there, not just our glass studio we share with Token Design, but our metal fabrication shop and kilns. For the first two days, it was very difficult to go in there with flashlights and figure out what was going on, but then we got our power back on, and we spent a week systematically taking all the machines apart, throwing away anything that’s wood or paper, computers, flat files, computer.”
The first weekend after the hurricane, volunteers began streaming into Red Hook to help, not only people from Brooklyn’s tight-knit glass community, but volunteers organized through social media. McLeod says that almost 40 people were on hand that first weekend to help rip down drywall and clean all the hand tools. “That was a really good positive boost, emotionally and physically,” says McLeod.
Volunteers pitch in to help sort and clean the equipment at the collaborative glass and metal shop at TokenNYC design. photo: james mcleod
The extent of the damage was a shock because they had weathered Hurricane Irene shortly after they moved in fairly well. And they took the warnings about Hurricane Sandy very seriously, sandbagging and sealing up the doors against the forecast tidal surges well beyond anything anyone else was doing.
What remained of the barricades against Hurricane Sandy at James McLeod and Leo Tecosky’s shared studio space with TokenNYC. McLeod says that a door controlled by the telephone company may have blown open during the storm. photo: james mcleod
“We went to a lot of trouble to sandbag and built a barrier door,” says McLeod. “We were some of the last people down there, we were still barricading our space to the last possible minute; in fact, we thought maybe we had overdone it. When we came in to see the damage, it was unclear what happened. The water had come in over the sandbag wall, seeped through everything, the tide was that high. We sprayfoamed at the same time, every step of the way. But there was another door leading into our space, owned by Verizon, that thing blew open, the water came in with a real serious intensity.”
McLeod says it will be at least two more weeks before they can start to think about getting back to work, and the piles of debris are just mounting with no sanitation services since the storm. The focus will remain on cleaning up, including the 200 pieces of motorized equipment, some of which they’ve managed to get running. McLeod is investigating sources of emergency grant money to help them with the expenses of cleanup and recovery.
“You also have to think about moving ahead,” says Tecosky. “You have to find a way to continue making work and teaching to survive.”