Former Illegal Loft Building Revived as Work Space
Artists work on a stop-motion animation in a work space at 1717 Troutman Street, an old manufacturing building that illegally housed about 220 people before getting shut down by city officials. — Photo by Diego Cupolo
Most of us were introduced to the 1717 Troutman warehouse when its 220 tenants, mostly artists, were kicked out in 2007 because they inhabited an illegally converted industrial building. Today, after two years and a long list of renovations, the building is once again filled with artists, but this time it’s strictly for work space.
“It was awful what happened when the city kicked everyone out and gave them only two hours to grab their stuff,” said David Steinberg, manager for Troutman Business Zone LLC, which currently owns the building. “Some of those people were my friends and I felt really bad, but we worked with the city and local politicians to reopen the space and make some use of it in positive ways that help the community.”
In May 2009, the building was reopened as a work space with 60 rentable units ideal for light manufacturing, workshops and artist studios. A large banner hangs outside 1717 Troutman advertising its available spaces, boasting their 14-foot ceilings and flexible leases, without any signs of the building’s troubled past.
At the time it was vacated, city inspectors told the New York Times, they “found various fire sprinkler, exit, electrical and plumbing violations, and determined that residential use was a violation of the property’s zoning for manufacturing.” Like similar occurrences in the neighborhood, it was most likely the zoning laws that cost tenants their homes, but Steinberg said the building’s current use as a work area will not cause any future problems.
“We complied with all the codes and ripped out all the illegal constructions and bedrooms like the city asked us to,” Steinberg said.
The building now houses a chandelier shop, wood shop, T-Shirt company, various screen printing projects and large range of creative ventures. Just last month, Andrew Graham and Cassie Raihl rented three studios for a week to host the much-hyped Quizotic art show. Graham said they got a discounted rate and was very happy with the experience.
“The first show went so well that we’re already talking about doing another one in the next month or so,” Graham said. “It’s a great place to have around for these kinds of events.”
great article, went to see the building and most spaces are allready taken, love the building and the veiws are just breathtaken,
Many of the spaces evacuated two years ago were businesses and studios. They were lost due to David Steinberg’s negligence and lies. He explicitly rented that building to others as “live work” and even as studio apartments in some cases. He knew in advance about the evacuation and continued to rent spaces, keeping rent and deposits. It’s absolutely egregious he is still managing that building and it’s shameful Bushwickbk is giving him a forum to potray himself as a someone concerned with the good of the community. People have such short memories.
David Steinberg never returned any deposits or anything to all those tenants who were vacated. He stole all of their money. He even lost court cases against them, but still never returned the money. And now he is renting these spaces back out and people are living in them. It’s exactly the same as before; ome people living, some people working. All those people are in for losing a lot of money though since David Steinberg is not actually the owner of the building, he is just subletting.
David Steinberg was fully aware of the city breaking down our lofts in 2007 but never let us know. He could have at least given us the notice of 4 weeks that he received from the zity.instead he collected the rent, with us unaware of what would happen 2 weeks later.
City officials thought and treated us as illegal squatters in our own live space. Police and firemen trampled down our doors and forced us out of the building.David left the city for months and never took responsibilety.Most of us lost art work, furniture and belongings that we could not take.David and his company should be locked up and never rent any spaces.They are greedy and liars.
So David. What do you have to say for yourself? You sound like a fucking tool. Care to defend?
Its simple in most cases you would call this type of a character a criminal thats what he is and obviously money is the only thing that comes between him and the law – to bad in accordance America doctrine our country is suppose to be a “Land based on Laws” not money (thats why they left and fought England).
to matt, cristine,shane aa, brooklyn, i lived in 312 from 2002 thru the vacte, that same way i told you right after the vacate: you all knew very well that this place was a commercial building there has been a vacate order in 2005 and you decided to stay, because you your rent was cheaper then any other live loft, in 2005 David offered everybody their deposit back, and 9 tenants took the offer the others decided to stay and take that risk, True,i did not recieve my deposit back< with reason i built 7 bedrooms in my space and David needed tyo remove it which cost him so i didnt expect but i know for a fact that many people did get their deposit back, therer is a reason we lost in court and he is still in business, spoketo david 4 weeks ago and he told me that the building is now up to code and no one lives there, he has freaqnt inspections by the DOB, and passes, until that day we were all good freinds with David he never said no , allways gave in to tanants, every body loved him, and now his new tanants which are legal love the place and love David too! cant beleive how in 5 months he filled this building has only 6 out of 70 lofts available,
Sincerly Yours
Joe from 312
Bottom line, the guy David is a punk. He wants to go to the press and act all soft… come on man. This guy has no integrity or credibility- he’s sort of like the R&B singer Chris Brown. A sensitive slumlord is still a slumlord. I’d have way more respect for him if he were selling fake Gucci and Polo on Canal street.
to Joe from 312: maybe you lost in court because you are friends with the dude, and are still chilling with him! I’ve never heard of somebody suing a person who they still chat with, agree with, and admire- that’s absurd! Where did you go after you got booted? David’s pad? You are either mad dumb and truly named Joe, or you are mad dumb, and actually David himself using a fake name in this forum. No matter who you are, your drunken text message of a rant is lame. I, like all the other “tanants” want my deposit back, at least.
thanx bobo, you hit the nail on the head, i didnt loose in court, i said we did as the association that i contributed money to for legal costs, i do take insults,
thank you bobo (what ever that smells like)
The only person who speaks with such incorrect grammar as “Joe Scarpula” is David Steinberg himself. It’s kind of clear to me this that this is actually David Steinberg making these comments under this name. Nobody else is that bad at spelling! And I’ve seen David do this same kind of thing before in emails to try to get info out of me.
For the record, David Steinberg has lost every single time he went to court. They actually recognize him there now and don’t even take him seriously. Former tenants won a lot of free rent off him because he kept losing in court.
This building will absolutely be shut down soon if David Steinberg has anything to do with it, just look at his history. He can’t run a successful business to save his life.
Agreed, Having lived in 1717 for two years, 2005 to 2007, I can vouch for the fact that Joe Scarpula is likely David Steinberg pretending to be a tenant. Steinberg had notoriously terrible relations with his former tenants–He repeatedly lied to them and threatened them. The safety conditions at 1717 were substandard, actually, below substandard. The only emergency exit for the entire building was double padlocked shut with iron chains and the ceiling routinely leaked feces from the third to the second floor. These were issues that Steinberg was unconcerned with. Whenever an order to leave the building was forced on the tenants by the Housing Department, (and eventually the Police and Fire Departments) Steinberg, was no where to be found. It later turned out that the company tenants had been writing their checks to, Troutman Studios, was not registered as a legal entity in the state of New York. Further, Steinberg, claimed to the tenants that he HAD a Certificate of Occupancy for the second floor. This turned out to be totally false. An utter fabrication, a figment of his imagination perhaps.
How this man can possibly still be doing business in his state is utterly unfathomable. He deliberately and maliciously destroyed the well-being of about 200 hard working New York artists. Some of these people are still recovering from the financial and mental strain of DIRECT EFFECTS OF HIS GROSS NEGLIGENCE. If you are living in this building, be warned.. IT WAS ONCE A FORMER PESTICIDE FACTORY.
WALK AWAY NOW
A few facts to add to some of the debunking above-
-I don’t believe Joe Scarpula ever contributed any money for legal costs to the 1717 Troutman Tenants Association.
-the 1717 Troutman Tenants Association never “lost in court”. The case has yet to actually get to court. Depositions will finally be taken in the near future.
-I believe Joe Scarpula’s 7 bedrooms were likely rentals, subletted from subletter Steinberg, who leases the 1 and 1/2 floors he illegally built out there. As such JS is a landlord, essentially a Steinberg junior, and his legal interests are in tandem w/ Steinberg’s, not the tenants.
-of the 220 +/- people who were removed, to my knowledge there were no more than 2 deposit/last month rent refunds-we’re talking in the neighborhood of 1/4 million dollars stolen. When confronted David Steinberg occasionally stated that deposits/last months rent had been applied to building improvements-a completely illegal action without any visible changes to attest to it.
-leases there stated that improvements could not be removed. Translation: your bedrooms and other “illegal constructions” are improving my property and will continue to do so after you leave. This is one of many clear indications that Steinberg fully intended these spaces to be used as residences.
-according to the city the building was not up to code even for the purposes it was zoned for, and thus after refusing to heed repeated warnings from the city all tenants under (sub) leases with David Steinberg were removed regardless of whether they were living there.
I could go on and on but revisiting the destruction wrought upon this community via finding themselves stuck between a criminal landlord and NYC Real Estate Industry Special Forces (sometimes known as NYC DOB backed up by NYPD, NYFD, DEP, etc), just hurts too much. It was truly “awful what happened when the city kicked everyone out” (DS), but only for the people who lost their homes and work spaces without notice-the guy who hoodwinked this community into paying considerably above local commercial rental rates for space billed as live/work and then screwed it up, so far has simply waltzed away with a profit.