* THE 5TH SIDE * ABOUT A PROJECT IN PHILADELPHIA *

Press: Inspiration Info and Homeland Screening

2011-11-18T06:47:00.001-05:00

"The Maas Building is a relatively new venue in North Philly (just under a year old) and generally hosts performances and events. It just so happens to be a wonderful venue for visual art, as “Inspiration Information” proves. The ideas and methods in this show are definitely some food for thought and shed light on a variety of creative processes."

- Chip Schwartz for The Art Blog

link to full review • http://theartblog.org/2011/11/inspiration-information/

Still from Maria Dumlao's Untitled (2010)

"HOMELAND, a screening curated by Jesse Pires as part of the recently ended Inspiration Information exhibit at the Maas Building, offered a thoughtfully considered program of films and videos about the power of place and its influence on one’s point of view. Human presence is elusive in these films, but each in its own turn uses sound and lonely, unpeopled landscapes to explore place as a social and personal construct. The biggest pleasure of this show is in the sum of its parts – the contemplative pace of the program encourages a reading across the four films. Viewed together, they emphasize the rewards of slowing down to take a good look at the places to which we have grown habituated, which we are complicit in constructing, and which ultimately control and define us."

- excerpt from J. Makary's review on The Nicola Midnight St. Claire.

Link to the full article • http://the-st-claire.com/1111/1111-review2.html

Inspiration Information at Maas

2011-11-10T11:53:00.000-05:00

Inspiration Information
Curated by Sam Belkowitz & Alex Gartelmann

Taking its title from a song by R&B artist Shuggie Otis, Inspiration Information is an open examination of the subconscious drives that inform our making practices. What made you become an artist? What ideas are at the core of your art practice? Like Otis’s soul-driven, dreamy expression of the happiness and inspiration one can get from true love, the show looks at the myriad of ways that our artistic interests and practices are deeply woven into our lives. The exhibition uses this song as a parallel for framing personally motivated practices in art making.

Inspiration Information opens on Friday October 21 at the Maas Building, 1325 Randolph Street, Philadelphia, and runs through November 12th, 6pm. This exhibition will include video, installation, painting, sculpture, and photography. Featured artists include: Isaac Lin, Jason Musson, Sam Belkowitz, Matt Pruden, Kim Walker, Jonas Sebura, Barbara Jenkins, Joel Parsons, Corkey Sinks, David Harper, Jesse Butcher, Alex Gartelmann, Jamie Diamond, and Lee Arnold.

Staircase in the 5th Side Space

2011-11-09T11:33:00.000-05:00

Thanks Anthony Angelicola for this amazing staircase, made from a pile of reclaimed wood that we had lying around the place. Not only does it look totally stylish, we can now get to the second floor without a ladder! This space just became ... something. Real good.

For more info on Anthony, check out his website.

The icing on the cake is that we suspended the stairs from the ceiling.

Floating stairs! Proving that magic is possible...

Julet Hope Wayne: October 28th

2011-10-28T10:20:00.003-04:00

Join us for a really special show: Comedienne/storyteller Juliet Hope Wayne (of The Moth on NPR) will be performing for a taping of a live comedy album before YOU, the studio audience, throughout the evening! In between Juliet's bits (that did not sound right at all), you'll hear sets from Arctic Splash and Acres Of Diamonds.

This will all take place at the 5th Side and Hi5 Studio where we will be keeping it warm with burning wood.

NOTE: YOU CAN PURCHASE ADVANCE TICKETS HERE:

http://philebrity.ticketleap.com/juliet-hope-wayne-w-arctic-splash--acres-of-diamonds/

Maas Design Philly Furniture Show

2011-10-18T09:00:00.000-04:00

The 5th Side Hosts Ditzler-Wittchen Wedding

2011-10-10T10:14:00.000-04:00

This was a truly awesome event.

Congrats Samantha & Ben!

Hi 5 Studio Progress Pictures

2011-10-01T11:26:00.000-04:00

Control Room Window in the Hi 5 Studio. Double glass using reclaimed Philip Glass glass.

Rewind a few weeks and we were building the 20' double wall in the Live Room.

Fall Rains and Grass

2011-09-28T11:04:00.000-04:00

A watched pot never boils, but all the rain this fall has helped our grass seeds fill in.

More Garden Pics

2011-09-09T22:11:00.000-04:00

The Cypress tree, in front of the shed, almost but still unfinished.

Pile of scrap wood, to burn. Bike leaning on chair. (Not So) Still Life...

We Planted a Mimosa Tree on 5th St. Some say it's a weed tree.

Don't believe everything you hear.

Victor and Ben made planters on Randolph Street.

EMBRACING WHITE

2011-08-05T17:36:00.003-04:00

The change was much bigger than we imagined. All the irregularities evened out and it became one entity. One European-style entity. French Barn or Spanish Castle Magic?

A reminder of what the building looked like before...

Summer Report on The Garden

2011-08-05T16:47:00.003-04:00

Our fig tree in the foreground

We surrounded this rock we forraged from the woods in New England with some low growing herbs.

Future firepit spot.

Our tomatoes went pretty crazy and took over a whole patch of the garden. But they're delicious.

This is a volunteer Jimson Weed plant. You may have heard of this plant from the Carlos Castaneda books. Folks smoked the stuff.

After a Rain.

Who knew that the perfect tool for digging ferns out of the woods was the guitar?

The grass, in the end, grew in kind of patchy-like. The sun really scorched some parts of the yard. We'll re-seed when it gets cooler in the fall.

ARS NOVA JUNE 2011

2011-06-12T22:39:00.001-04:00

It's about time we get some experimental music up in here.

The folks at Ars Nova are doing a show on June 13th, 2011 at the Maas Space: Henry Threadgill, Jeff Parker/Mike Reed.

[ HERE'S AN MP3 to STREAM ]

HI5 Studio Progress Spring 2011

2011-05-22T16:10:00.001-04:00

Looking into the control room. Very exciting.

For more info: Hi 5 Studio

Oh! Pears Variety Show, Friday and Saturday May 20-21

2011-05-17T07:24:00.002-04:00

Stay tuned... this should be a great show! Here's the Facebook Link.

Michael Mullin Will Haughery BFA Show

2011-05-11T13:16:00.002-04:00

Michael Mullin and Will Haughery were in Ben's class at Tyler School of Art, and helped out in the early stages of renovations around the Maas Building a couple summers ago. From sandblasting, climbing obscenely tall ladders to crawling under floorboards to run water pipes, these guys have done it all.

... And they're really great artists! Come see their combined BFA show this coming weekend. Congrats Michael and Will! Opens this Friday 6-9pm.

The guys, painting some dirty walls, in preparation for the show

THE DAWNING OF A NEW ERA

2011-05-08T19:52:00.001-04:00

We've been pretty hard at work: hoping the work part of this will end, and the enjoyment of this yard will begin. This picture represents: the finishing of the stone path, 12 tons of dirt spread around the yard, the planting of a few bushes, the moving of a tree, and seeding grass seed.

The last loads of cobblestones from the secret ghetto cobblestone mine.

2 loads (6 tons each) of screened and tested topsoil. Bury the lead!

We moved Honeysuckle and Vibernum bushes: after finishing the stone path, this place started to come together and some changes needed to be made. Rake the soil, and seed grass, add water, and... enjoy! well, wait a month maybe and then enjoy...

We'll be watching this closely. Do they make ultrasounds for grass?

We decided to move the Hawthorne tree to the spot where the Black Gum tree had been - and died this past winter. The Hawthorne seems to inhabit this spot majestically.

Woop here it is.

Relaxing with Neighborhood Friends

2011-05-02T09:10:00.001-04:00

After the last 5 weeks of extreme busy-ness, it's nice to chill out with some good folks from the neighborhood. We really couldn't have picked a better group of people.

CLUB LYFESTILE: RITE OF SPRING (2011)

2011-04-30T09:23:00.005-04:00

Audience

After Math

Class

Act

CLEARING SPACE

2011-04-24T08:28:00.005-04:00

Concrete Patio: done

5th Side Warehouse: Tons of Crap moved. It's reasonably clear

The Hi 5 Studio: We're finishing sheetrocking

Truckloads of Topsoil: delivered and spread

Piles of rubble, lead-laden soil, and mountains of trash: Out. Done. Thank you Kevin Duggan for your dumptruck!

Gardening: except for a few casualties, most of our trees and bushes have survived the winter / construction abuse.

Bob Beatty delivering a load of topsoil. $14/ton for tested soil!

We're dealing wth some serious wreckage around here. We keep putting off planting grass until further and further - we missed planting last fall because of too much going on and not enough good dirt... Now... May 1st is the date, hopefully!

An Exposed Aggregate Concrete Patio

2011-04-18T10:35:00.005-04:00

Bam. There it is.

Simple. Elegant. Affordable. Easy. Ok, well, all those things are true except the last part. The backstory: After many conversations over materials (slate, flagstone pavers, etc) we settled on concrete as our material. It's really the most flexible option. And it's totally cheap. We actually started looking at sidewalks: They're kind of ubiquitous and you don't really notice them most of the time, but they're kind of cool-looking (at least the old ones are). They're modern, rectangular, sleek. We walked around taking pictures of patches of sidewalks we like.

The pic on the top right we liked best. Nearly white cement, and dark exposed aggregate. It turns out that no concrete trucks in Philly will mix up white cement at any reasonable cost, so we decided to do it ourselves. We borrowed a friend's cement mixer, and ordered deliveries of stone, sand and cement. Again, it turned out that no place sold the combination of white sand and dark stone, so we had to get two separate deliveries.

I think at this point we were glad that we haven't seeded grass yet. It would have gotten destroyed.

For stuff like this we nearly always call on a hand from Victor Marin, our next-door neighbor. When the project is big, he sometimes brings one of his many relatives. This time we had Victor's brother Jose Luis working with us. (Not to be confused with Victor's nephew Jose Luis)

A little help from our friendsl: BC Camplight, Rock n Roller extraordinaire shows up the first morning to move some heavy stuff. He says he likes the workout. If I meet more people that say stuff like that, I'm going to start a free gym. Rock and Roll Concrete Aerobics. Just for the record, he did not make it to the 7am start on Sunday morning.

Turns out white cement happens to be double the cost of regular (grey) cement. So, we use 75% regular cement and white on just the last couple inches on top.

Victor, our resident concrete expert

To get the exposed aggregate look, you have to wash the top layer off while the cement is hardening. Sponges proved to be the best tool for that.

We did it in 1/3s. By the last 3rd, we had it down. The first 1/3 is still a little milky. We got started late and ended up washing it in the dark. We were too tired to get up at 10pm and sweep it again. We'll get it looking all good soon.

We had a little left over mix so we made a much-needed step to our house.

El Camino In The Yard

2011-04-15T18:11:00.005-04:00

This is El Camino Real, the path that will eventually guide you through a thick jungle into wondrous world of The 5th Side (hopefully without too much trip & fall)

Geometry is fun. Most of this slate and cobblestones were here, underneath the asphalt (see posting May 2010). So we're finally piecing this windy path together. It's actually the most satisfying kind of work. It's like playing Tetris and lifting weights at the same time.

More satisfying than pinochle and taxes?

at some point perhaps halfway through, we ran out of cobblestones. Luckily, within a short walk of our place, there are decaying properties that hold the history of Philadelphia streets in their piles of rubble. Absentee landlords sit on these places, refusing to sell or fix them up - in the hopes that the developments in nearby Northern Liberties will make them rich when they can sell them to condo developers. Until then, we have vacant, abandoned lots all around us that do nothing but collect trash.

Well, as they say, one man's trash is another man's cobblestone walkway...

Countertops by Anthony Angelicola

2011-04-09T10:56:00.000-04:00

Anthony Angelicola, friend, fellow Kensington resident, and furnituremaker, putting the finishing touches on the Maas countertops: made from a piece of bowling alley we bought for $100.

RANCH STYLE

2011-04-08T18:01:00.000-04:00

A picture is worth a thousand dollars.

NOT THIS ONE!

This is what it looks like outside our front door.

Cherry Trees Blooming March 2011

2011-03-23T22:23:00.000-04:00

Randolph St is the cutest little street. We can't really take credit for that, but we did plant these two cherry trees which are now blooming (late March, 2011) and ... I guess the façade here on Randolph St looks mighty good! Paolo our neighbor, has been rather active, cleaning the block. Props to Paolo.

This Is What The Back Looks Like as of March 10th, 2011

2011-03-23T22:17:00.001-04:00

Does a picture of the warehouse represent a psychological state? I just want to know.

Juliette Binoche's Birthday

2011-03-09T22:00:00.002-05:00

We love JB!

PlanPhilly Publishes an Article About Us

2011-03-05T08:07:00.002-05:00

"Salvation, Optimism and Perserverance in Eastern North Philadelphia". We are the 2nd feature on this page.

* PS They say the camera adds 5 pounds? What didj'u eat like 6 cameras r sumthin?

As The Eyes of The Seahorse Opens

2011-02-19T09:15:00.002-05:00

As The Eyes of The Seahorse is a collaboration between the indie rock band The Mural and The Mint and the Nichole Canuso Dance Company. It is an ambitious and unique performance which doubles as the release party for the vinyl LP by the same ("Seahorse") name. We've got a copy of it signed by rock star Mike Kiley! The record is pure white and sounds great. There are two shows left: Saturday, Feb 19th 7:30pm and 9:30pm It is quickly selling out, so get your tickets online here.

Here's the set, a couple hours before opening...

Cat Pics Are Nearly Always Cute

2011-02-07T08:22:00.002-05:00

Has anyone said before that cats are cute? Yeah? Well, anyway, cats can get used to anything - and I can dig that. Nailguns and caulk can make a good bed if you think outside the box. Wait, where am I sleeping tonight?

Coming Soon: As The Eyes of The Seahorse

2011-02-02T09:50:00.000-05:00

February 18 and 19th: A collaboration between The Nichole Canuso Dance Company and The Mural and The Mint.

buying tickets in advance is highly recommended!

We screen Nilsson documentary

2011-02-02T09:44:00.000-05:00

We were so excited that we completely forgot the Harryaoke we had planned. Well that and the fact that our star singer left early...

Maas Upstairs Space Is Now In Use

2011-01-20T16:42:00.009-05:00

you can double-click this image and it opens up as a panoramic

So we've basically finished the 3rd Maas Space. "Finish" is a strong word around here, but it's close enough for now. We put it up on a few Philly Space listserves and have been booking it now for shows and rehearsals. Who knew there was a demand for old trolley shops?

There is also now a website for The Maas Building. It just seemed necessary to have the calendar live somewhere official. So now that there's stuff going on in the Maas space, people sometimes ask "what is the difference between The 5th Side and the Maas Building? Good question*. The 5th Side got it's name from the fact that the building is basically divided in two equal halves, and we used to call them "The 5th Side" and "The Randolph Side" when referring to where in this great big mess something was. We've now got a wall that divides the building along these lines, basically making The 5th Side, Hi 5 Studio** and our house one entity, and the other spaces (New Paradise, Subcircle, and the Maas Rehearsal Space) are Maas Building.

* Answer #2: "What's the difference between the 5th Side and The Maas Building?" Heat! Of course, our house and space are still full of junk and kind of chilly. Maas renovations took priority for obvious reasons. Hopefully NEXT winter won't be as cold over here...

** Oh, did we mention that we've started a separate blog about the studio? Now it's all about 2x4s and caulk but hopefully it will eventually be a blog about actual music projects.

Subcircle Moves Into The Maas Building

2011-01-17T16:20:00.001-05:00

On January 1st, Jorge and Niki Cousineau, the media/theatre group Subcircle, moved into the 2nd downstairs studio space. We met them originally through friends, and it turns out that they often collaborate with with New Paradise Laboratories - (now their neighbors in the building). We couldn't have asked for a better group of people to work with here. Oh, and it turns out that Jorge was just voted "Theater Artist of The Year" by The Philadelphia Weekly. Here's a pic of some of Jorge's multimedia theatre installation work.

Multiplicity: George Seurat (Jeffrey Coon) shedding animate copies
of himself via Jorge Cousineau's videos in the Arden's
production of Sunday in the Park With George.

Check out the full PW article here.

Finishing the Floor in the Upstairs Space

2010-12-27T09:00:00.000-05:00

Finally, after months and months of waiting, we have the money to spring for the floor sanders... A good day!

Et voila.

Coming Soon: Brandt Imhoff Senior Art Show + Special Guests

2010-11-19T10:38:00.005-05:00

This show has been organized by Brandt Imhoff - wonderful designer of nearly all of Ben's printed material (L'Etage Bastille Day, Le Fits and the awesome 5th Side Benefit Poster) This is Brandt's senior show which we're hosting here. He's graduating with a Fine Art degree from Tyler School of Art this December, and has invited a group of other artists to show with him.

Opening: Saturday, December 11th

8pm-10pm

The Maas Building

@ 1325 Randolph St

Philadelphia, PA

Artists:

Brandt Imhoff

Joe Martin

Jon Irving

Adam Lovitz

Photos from the Benefit Show Nov 13, 2010

2010-11-14T19:48:00.009-05:00

Well folks it was truly a blast. Thanks everyone for coming, and thanks to everyone who helped out, played music, moved heavy objects, swept the floor, set up lights, grilled hot dogs, manned the board, etc. It got us off on the right foot, and we enjoyed ourselves thoroughly in the process.

Not Waving But Drowning, playing a great set after suffering much traffic on the way down from NYC.

Le Fits

BC Camplight

Chill time after the show. It's amazing what a campfire and a cypress tree will do to make you feel you are not in the middle of the city.

-----

* * * The Clean Up * * *

If you've seen the 5th Side space, (the open warehouse part of the Maas Building) you may be wondering how the hell we got all that junk cleaned up? May I remind you that just days ago it was full of crap? We get by with a little help from our friends. And of course, it's really all about lighting. (Thanks Kevin Muth for the awesome 2 hour lighting design)

Alonso Daco, Alex Yaker, and Brian Christinzio hoisting heavy objects up to the loft in preparation for the show.

Bye bye stuff! I guess we'll have to deal with you upstairs.

Hours before the show...

Benefit Show: Saturday, November 13th

2010-11-11T09:10:00.001-05:00

Philly's own BC Camplight, Le Fits, and the NYC cabaret all-stars Not Waving but Drowning play at the 5th Side's first music show open to the public. Proceeds will go towards work on the performance space. $10 gets you in. We'll be serving beer, hot dogs and yes, there will be a campfire!

Applied Mechanics: Portmanteau

2010-11-09T08:09:00.002-05:00

Photos from the Nov 7th performance by Applied Mechanics.

For more info, Applied Mechanics

The Word: Extended Shows Oct 29-30th

2010-10-27T09:52:00.002-04:00

(photo by Johnny Osborne)

The Word: Extended shows by popular demand. Friday, October 29th at 8pm, Saturday Oct 30th at 10pm. All shows free. 1320 N 5th St. Philadelphia. Limited seats, reserve a ticket @ http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/132634

Elastic Theater presents: The Word

2010-10-14T11:30:00.003-04:00

The 5th Side is presenting our first show open to the public: Elastic Theater's The Word. Double-click this flyer below to open larger, and for more info, visit http://www.elastictheater.com. If it's raining, the show will be held inside, in the large space upstairs, and if weather permits, the show will be outside.

New Paradise Laboratories Moves In

2010-09-30T21:28:00.003-04:00

October 1st marked a new era for us over here. This is New Paradise Laboratories, moving their headquarters to the Maas building. They're setting up their office in one of the downstairs spaces. And they're super cool! Here's a link to their site: newparadiselaboratories.org.

Urban Academy Visits from NYC

2010-09-30T21:17:00.003-04:00

Urban Academy, a public high school in NYC, sent a group down for a Philly field-trip. Ostensibly, they were in Philadelphia to study horses, but we think they came down just to camp out in our warehouse. It was fun, we made pasta and burgers and talked about the "G" word, but no one could beat Ben at ping pong.

All things have an origin: Rachel Birdsall, longtime teacher at Urban Academy "a small school with big ideas" is Catherine's sister.

September Photos

2010-09-16T17:37:00.003-04:00

The entryway... with our home-made bench, hewn from an old beam left in the yard. Orange tree given to us frozen solid last winter by a neighbor. We nursed it back to life. It may need a new pot?

I stitched together this panoramic of the upstairs space. Try clicking the photo to see it a bit larger in a new window. This almost captures how cool it is. Anyway, it's quite nearly done.

The kitchen. Functional, needs some cabinets but the sink and stove work. 2 bathrooms off of this room also.

Great Leaps Ahead: Nearly Done with Phase 1

2010-08-08T12:04:00.009-04:00

Trying to meet a deadline from the city's Façade Grant program (as well as a vacation - finally - in August) we have been hard at work getting our entrance on Randolph Street done. If these photos seem like a great leap ahead, it could be because our camera broke and left us blog-post-less for a while. It is as close to done as we've ever been with this phase of the project. Glass Commercial Door and Sidelights furnished by Roma Windows in South Philly. We tried to put them in ourselves, failed miserably because we didn't understand the interlocking parts, and finally hired a real sweet "glazer" named Spencer who worked 1/2 a day with us and didn't charge an arm or a leg. just a toe - and so we got it done right. It works. And then moved onto the project of the wall above the door.

We wanted to do something that looked modern, not cheap, yet cost was an issue, as always. So we looked at some design books and liked the look of vertical slatted wood in modern Scandinavian architecture. We made a design, bought a bunch of 1x4 pine boards at a lumber yard, and pre-stained and sealed them on the ground. Then we cut them to length, fabricated sets of 2 on the ground, and fastened them to nailer strips on top of the old plywood. I believe what we did could be called reverse board and batten. It's kind of barn, kind of modern, kind of soft, kind of hard.

Gerhardt, dancing on the scaffolding.

Halfway done! Kickin ass is what I say... and the windows (although they are fairly cheap pre-existing windows and slightly off kilter) look great when they're recessed a little.

The Facade Grant will match funds for replacing windows as well - so we took out all the old broken single-paned windows, cleaned things up and spray painted the green grating black. This is the first time since owning the building that these windows haven't been boarded up or covered by dirty plastic! Now open, the sun shines in. There is so much light inside it feels great.

Cleaned up a little inside, and it's nearly ready.

The Yard goes Green

2010-07-24T14:56:00.004-04:00

Amazing what a little time will do. The clover is coming up, we've got a few plants in the ground, we are putting together some frames for raised beds. It's been a hot summer, so we've been using tons of water. Can't wait to get our rainwater system running - but that looks like that will have to wait for next season. Again, when in need of gardening help, call your mother. Pictured, Laura Birdsall and Ben, oggling the new plants.

Life where for years there has been none...

Note small fig tree on left. Grow little guy, grow!

Using our Cobblestones

2010-07-17T14:45:00.000-04:00

We decided to use all our cobblestones to pave an area by the gate for parking. Here's our neighbor Victor helping us set the stones. How many wheelbarrow loads of stones did we move? That's some heavy stuff, stone work. Wouldn't recommend it for more than a week.

Et Voila.

Dirt Farm

2010-07-15T14:27:00.003-04:00

We got a couple loads of free fill dirt from one of Irish Kevin's work sites, and one load of healthy dark topsoil from a nursery. Above is a picture of the free dirt. I guess we got what we paid for. We spent a week cleaning out all the trash and rocks.

When you need help with your garden, call your mother. Ben's mom came from Minnesota to help get things going.

Once we got the soil into reasonable shape, we seeded the yard with clover. Dutch White Clover, to be exact. We were incredibly excited when it started to poke up. This is like an ultrasound for clover.

Excavating The Yard

2010-05-22T09:44:00.007-04:00

Kevin (Irish Kevin) claimed that he would excavate the whole yard in one day. I didn't quite believe him. He started at 7am. This photo shows where he was at 7:15. And thus it was and it was thus and all that it was was good. Thursday, May 20th, 2010 our yard was liberated of the confines of it's asphalt.

We found the remnants of a cobblestone street under the asphalt. We saved them a big pile. We're imagining parking area made of cobblestones.

There was also loads of slate and bricks. We saved what was good. Bricks for building repairs, slate for a patio.

THE AMAZING STORY OF THE CHEAPEST RAINWATER COLLECTION TANK EVER, AND HOW BEN NARROWLY ESCAPED BEING BURIED ALIVE AND YES I POSTED ANOTHER PICTURE OF OUR CATS AND THERE'S A BURNING BUSH AND OTHER STRANGE BIBLICAL STUFF TOO.

We measured our $25 1000 gallon water tank and picked a spot for a 7' deep 6' wide hole. We'll eventually run the gutters into it, and stick a pump down into the bottom and irrigate our garden with rainwater. But first before the garden exists, we wanted to bury the tank. A "cistern" I believe it's called. I gave Irish Kevin four pendant lamps that I bought at an auction. I had bought 28 of them for $7.50 a piece (I have trouble with quantities at auctions) Anyway, Kevin liked the lights and said he'd dig the hole for the tank as a trade. So we're up to $53 now...

Funny thing is that we found an old basement right where we started digging. A nice flat basement floor 7' below the ground. How odd. It seems perhaps that the Lord wanted us to put our tank here.

My job was to go into the hole (may I call it a "spider hole"?) and help place the tank as Kevin lowered it in.

It was a little scary but apparently not scary enough to stop taking pictures. Have I really become such a blog-dork? Can I invent the word "blork"?

B L O R K

And now here's the blork underneath the water tank.

Wait! No Kevin! Arrgh!

I narrowly escaped a horrible fate.

The world is just a giant litter box isn't it? I've always thought so.

A post-work barbeque in front of a gaping hole, beside a fig tree. It seems rather biblical, doesn't it? Perhaps it is the fig tree that is on fire, and God (or perhaps Satan) is speaking to us through this burning tree... and then suddenly the earth opens up and swallows the young Abraham (Blork) into it's dark crevasse. And then the followers of Jesus all ate hot dogs and drank cold beer. Hip hip hooray!

A Quick Tour of the Spaces as of May 1st, 2010

2010-05-04T12:11:00.006-04:00

The upstairs space (1250 SF) is getting close to ready. It's got a front door, lights, and air conditioners are almost ready to install.

This is the little loft that's a part of the upstairs space. It's nice to climb up there. Great view from those windows. Lots of light.

This is our smallest space (460 SF) and it's serving as the shop right now. I'd like to get some of my students to open up a printshop here. But there can be only a few free months of rent before the bills we have call for real money.

This is the space that we have rented to Demitri. His lease began on May 1st, and he's moving his stuff in slowly. Still need a back door for his space - and the air conditioning needs to be hooked up. But Demitri is flexible. Works for us.

Here's the yard after throwing away probably 3 tons of trash. We are getting closer and closer to being able to tear off the asphalt!

Our 3rd dumpster we've had here. Duke the dumpster guy is probably one of the nicest people I've met through the whole construction project.

You may ask... Did we throw everything away? Clearly we are unable to part with the 100+ windows, 18 radiators, cobblestones, sinks and broken chairs that remain. If anyone has ever seen the Polanski film "The Tenant" I'm feeling it here as I have slowly become the previous owner of our place, the salvage guy. I sold some doors last week, and a bunch of fluorescent lights the week before that. Actually, I'm more successful of a salvage guy than he was. He didn't sell anything.

Ping pong in the warehouse - this is "our part" of the warehouse, the future studio and perfomance space. As of now, still plenty of work to do here. But the doors are nice and the space stays cool in the summer because of all the concrete.

Glass Door on the Second Floor

2010-05-02T08:13:00.000-04:00

Here's Matt, helping us put in our most expensive door, on the second floor.

Another Tree Planting in the Neighborhood

2010-04-27T07:26:00.002-04:00

Matt and Ramona Dimon get 2 trees this time.

We were joined by these inspiring little whippersnappers!

A Rainwater Collection Tank

2010-04-18T09:54:00.003-04:00

One morning, Paul called me up and said "hey Ben do you want to go get some 1000 gallon water tanks with me?" (A typical request from Paul) "Sure!" I replied. Rainwater collection has been a goal - albeit a future one, but when the opportunity arises... The other tub, in the foreground will make a great hot tub. All for a total of $25.

Some New Pics, in no particular order, with scattered Narrative

2010-04-15T20:38:00.007-04:00

Oh Verna...This is a nice moment - but imagine this picture with grass and plants instead of broken glass and asphalt?

We brought a guy in who has a portable saw mill. Weird Dave from New Jersey, a physical therapist by most days, a "sawyer" by night slash other days. He liked to talk a lot, and was often embarrassingly revealing about his marriage.

But the guy sure knew how to run a bandsaw...

It started to rain the first day. We were not deterred.

This is the wood we got out of the deal. All in all, amazingly cheap. Recycled wood, resawn. High quality vintage shi-ite if you're into such things.

Cherry Trees in Bloom

2010-04-11T09:42:00.003-04:00

Randolph St is without a doubt one of the prettiest blocks around when the cherries are in bloom. There's our place, and you can see our little cherries planted there - not blooming right now with the pink ones, but we'll see. I know they'll open up soon.

We now have a mailbox

2010-04-11T09:39:00.002-04:00

Made of the finest recycled electrical box that one can buy at Fazio's Steel in NJ. Finally, after two years of soggy mail, we are moving up in the world.

Our First Tenant

2010-04-11T08:31:00.002-04:00

Demitri Ponns, Chef and International Man of Mystery Extraordinaire... We've known him for a while but didn't know we shared the same dreams for our event space. Demitri will rent the medium-sized of the 3 offices for catering/storage and he'll throw dinner parties in our event space. We are so happy to have him here. And he made us dinner!

Philly Cleanup Day Spring 2010

2010-04-11T08:29:00.002-04:00

Some hot white girls planting wild grass seeds in an empty lot on Thompson and 5th. I must say that I nearly gagged emptying a trash can that contained what is probably best described as "liquid dog poop"

A Jewish Carpenter arrives after Easter

2010-04-11T08:20:00.004-04:00

We have been meaning to get rid of this door for a while - ever since last summer, when we put in our new door. It somehow just never got done. What we needed was a miracle... A visit from a Jewish Carpenter!

And now we have a nice yellow wall here.

Every good carpenter deserves a nap after a few hours work...

A Little Shellac goes a Long Way

2010-04-11T08:18:00.002-04:00

Victor, spraying shellac on the brick. We did 2 coats. There's many things you can seal brick with and we went with clear shellac. No more dust!

Finishing Drywall

2010-04-11T08:11:00.002-04:00

This is Marshall. He's our finisher. We heart Marshall. Flanked by yours truly and Lorenzo.

Springtime 2010

2010-03-27T09:01:00.004-04:00

It's late March. We've had some rain, and some warm days. The trees have started to bud. Philly becomes a different place in Spring. This little budder is one of our Amalankyer trees that we planted in front. As I write this, I realize that the story of this planting is long and funny - or at least telling about Philly: Want to hear it?

A tree is planted in Philadelphia (about 4 times)

by Ben

Through our friends and neighbors Paul & Lisa, we applied for free trees through a City Fairmount Parks planting initiative. First we planted 2 cherry trees on Randolph St. The City decides which trees you get and they send contractors to cut a hole in the sidewalk; they deliver trees to a neighborhood site and and then the neighborhood group does the rest with free shovels and mulch. Anyway, our first trees on Randolph St. went down without much of a hitch in fall of 2008, and the planting for 5th St (pictured above) was last fall, 2009. We applied for 2 trees on 5th St, and were approved, but the city came and cut one of the holes in front of our neighbor's property instead of ours. The tree planting operation went down as scheduled, but we couldn't rightly put this tree in on our neighbor's property (although it was tempting because I had previously approached the neighbor with tree applications and he said no and that "trees are dirty" or perhaps "messy" (you have to clean up the leaves?). Sort of shocking, but anyway, you can't pick your friends' noses and you can't plant your neighbor's property.

So, we set aside the Amelanchier tree that was supposed to go in that hole, and started the long, drawn out process of asking the City to send contractors back and cut a new hole (and fill in the hole they cut in our neighbor's sidewalk) We actually temporarily planted the tree at Paul and Lisa's place for about a week or two while we in communication (if it can be called that) with the City. Finally we just cut our own hole in the right place and it was a bright Saturday morning when Catherine drove the 2 blocks to Paul and Lisa's place to get the tree. She had noticed a piece of black plastic over the hole but thought that perhaps I had covered it so people wouldn't fall in (I was out of town). She dug up the tree, came back with the tree in the back of the truck, only to find that our lovely hole in the concrete had been filled with concrete and nicely troweled to the grade of the sidewalk. The contractors had instructions to fill a wrongly-placed hole on our block and they showed up and filled our new righteously-placed hole. As I was out of town, and had already returned the borrowed concrete saw, the poor tree went back in the truck, back to Lisa and Paul's, and eventually it was brought over to our friends' Alonso and Katie's place - because they wanted a new tree after the city had come and chopped their old beautiful tree down because of a neighbor's complaints! The astonishing efficiency of this action as well as the beautiful job they did filling in our hole with concrete is a testament to the corrupt, disfunctional, rambling mess that is the City of Philadelphia.

The end of the story is that 6 months later, at the next round of tree planting, we were able to cut the hole again and plant another Amelanchier tree. And a beautiful tree it is.

Finishing Sheetrock on Randolph St

2010-03-27T08:47:00.003-04:00

The Atrium / Entryway... We are big fans of this little overhang. It's strange how little details like this make the space 10x more interesting...

We've had this trouble where it's so difficult to convey space with 2d pictures. Perhaps a 3d video tour will be in the works. But for now, here's a cut and paste vertical panoramic:

I think you can click this pic and it will get bigger in your browser. If not... oh well. Gotto come visit!

Multi Leveled Spaces

2010-03-14T14:54:00.005-04:00

Dig the multi-levels... I'm taking a picture from about 36' off the ground.

When it's all done, painted, and windows replaced, this place will be downright sexy.

Here's the current state of the Common Kitchen. Lights need to be hung, etc but you can kind of get the feel.

One Tall Wall

2010-02-05T17:07:00.002-05:00

This is a difficult one...

A Quick History of The Past Couple Months

2010-01-30T12:58:00.008-05:00

Matt Dimon, helping build a wall and loft on the 2nd Floor.

It is quite cool to see out of these windows at 40+ feet off the ground.

We tore out quite a bit of old electrical cables and tons of dust. Tons. 2 shop vacs full. Black boogers days later.

Teofolo and José Luis, putting our Iron Shop stairs together in the front.

Finally... after months and months of stapling up heating tubes, running electrical wires, etc. We put up the ceiling. Particle Board. Will and Brandt did most of it. The worst was the reflective insulation. You have to create an air space and have it close to - but not touching the heating tubes. How many techniques were tried, curses evoked, staplers flung in frustration... before we finally got it done right?

And... Sheetrock. Hot Damn.

Work Crew Holiday Party

2010-01-25T13:35:00.000-05:00

The only thing we're missing is the jerseys... Ben, Will, Michael, Nicole, Brandt, Chris. Catherine took the picture. A fun night at Lucky Strikes. Brandt is a closet bowling professional.

When You Have Friends Over For Brunch And They Don't Eat Any Construction Material, It Means Your Kitchen Is Done

2010-01-22T13:32:00.002-05:00

We recently met this Argentinian guy, Martin (in the yellow shirt), who is building a house out of metal shipping containers up 5th Street a few blocks.

On another note, doesn't Eugenia look like she wants to kill Alonso?

Neighborhood Photos

2010-01-20T13:22:00.000-05:00

The corner of 4th and Girard, 2 blocks away.

And this is 1 block away from us. Are you gentrifying when you make rats relocate?

Little by Little, Heat in Winter

2009-12-13T16:20:00.005-05:00

Paul came in and figured out what was wrong with the boiler. The manual had the hot and cold water reversed!

So now our kitchen floor has warm, toasty hot water pumping through it.

A cat always lies on the warmest place in the house.

Kitchen Progress

2009-12-07T21:12:00.003-05:00

Putting in a Boiler

2009-12-07T20:54:00.007-05:00

I think this picture kind of tells it all.

But if you're not into the whole brevity thing:

Captain's Log: As of Monday, Dec 7th, the boiler hasn't been able to stay on. It turns on and then shuts down with some red light that indicates some gas issue illuminated. We had it ready to go this past Friday - We were minutes away from having the warm touch of heat pumping through our house... or so we thought. And not a moment too soon. Snow and Icy Rain were coming over the weekend. But it kept... shutting itself off....! Argh ! No! Nooooo!

So this past weekend, we braved another weekend of extreme cold in the house. By now, we're used to it. It used to phase me, but I've been learning the ancient art of patience and how to suffer gracefully. Perhaps we are characters in some sort of historical re-enactment. Titled... the first residents of Philadelphia. People wore wool coats, and generally suffered during winter, burning wood in drafty brick buildings. I imagine meals of thin potato soup with the occasional side of boiled shoe or wool coat.

So, you know... we're kickin' it old school.

Remodeling the 1st Floor of our House

2009-10-18T21:01:00.010-04:00

We found an old sink and cabinets on Craiglist - found the door at a recyled materials store. Catherine tiled the floor and this wall here. I ran the wiring to the switches and put in recessed lighting, and our friend Paul did the plumbing.

This is what the old floor looks like, after we stripped off the paint, sanded it and here's a couple coats of polyurethane. We believe it was used as the floor of a machine shop.

After we demolished the old kitchen, which wasn't much to speak of, other than a cool stove - The room looked like this.

I believe Jeffrey Dahmer summered here.

Anyway, now the room is really... poised to come together. We started in July, and it's now October. I don't think we'll be done before December.

Why does it take so long? One is that we wanted to put a radiant heated floor in our kitchen - and that was a lot of work. we cut the room in half, cut out part of the floor and placed radiant heating tubes and poured concrete. We managed to run tubes under part of the wood floor as well. That was quite hellish, crawling under the floorboards.

Another Radiant Floor Heating System

2009-07-25T13:21:00.006-04:00

The Irishmen, again with the concrete.

Summer BBQ #2

2009-07-25T13:08:00.004-04:00

July 11th BBQ with family and friends. What is she finding in that sand? Not sure I want to know.

When you're in the middle of tearing apart your kitchen is the perfect time for a party.

While we're working on the kitchen, we have basically moved our life into this chaotic scene here in the warehouse.

Blasted Wood

2009-07-12T23:58:00.005-04:00

A marked improvement. Here's a photo from about 6 months ago:

There had been pigeons in the building, I blasted a lot of pigeon shit off the cupola. When this picture was taken you couldn't stand up anywhere near there, and we were just walking around sandblasting standing on the 2 floors we have since put in - one at 10 feet, and one at about 25, that one just under the cupola. That's a pretty marked difference. I guess things happen everyday, but then again, so does breakfast - and sometimes the progress doesn't feel huge day to day. Sometimes it does. Recently there have been some major leaps and bounds. It feels nice. It feels like we have got this giant peach moving forward.

Sandblasting

2009-07-06T18:21:00.005-04:00

We rented a sandblaster for a week. It was an extremely dirty job. We cleaned up a lot of the old brick and wood beams in the building.

I will post pics of a cleaner building soon. As soon as I get the sand out of my nose.

The Cupola and Loft

2009-06-18T23:11:00.006-04:00

How to explain this cabin on the top of the building?

Replacing Old Rotting Wood on a Roof -- pass the Steve Miller

With these stairs, we can now get to the Cupola from the Loft.

Have you ever seen the Loft? It's sort of the unsung Treasure of this place... or shall be eventually... I think it's kind of cool already. Dirty as all hell and in need of... everything.

Radiant Heat in a Concrete Floor

2009-05-06T20:05:00.001-04:00

We hired an Irishman named Kevin to take up the old messed up slab with his excavator, put down stone, and pack the floor. When deciding who to hire, there were a couple of guys named Kevin who were in the running and part of my conversation with Catherine included the following:

Cat: "Why do you want to hire this new Kevin over that other Kevin?" Me: "This Kevin is not a crackhead." The other Kevin had reputedly cut off his wife's arm in a drug-induced skirmish involving a samurai sword. That story came from the same guy who had recommended him. He also smelled. The choice wasn't hard. The Kevin we did hire ended up being superb. He came over with another Irishman named Cormack and it was grand.

Patrick McDonald, a local architect and developer - a friend of a friend, was in between projects, and helped us out by designing a radiant heat system to lay in the concrete. These are his guys putting in Pex tubing. Warm water will flow through these tubes and heat up the concrete floor. It's like walking on a giant radiator. It's also quiet heat which is perfect for a recording studio.

We marked where the walls will go in the studio and put in these foam pieces so that when we pour the concrete, there will be separations between the rooms - which is ideal for killing sound vibrations from one room to another. Start at the bottom - all rooms on independent slabs. This was fun. Our architectural drawings were somehow a few feet off and it was messing things up, so we sort of scrapped it and spray painted the lines for the walls at night before the concrete went in. That felt liberating and I think we ended up with a great design that responds well to the space. A little spray foam to close all possible gaps because I got a bit obsessed with the separate slab thing.

Irish Kevin and his Home Depot Day Laborers -- is that a good name for a band?

And after a little polish and setting... We have a nice new concrete floor.

You're supposed to keep it wet for 30 days

A whole mess of radiant pex tubes coming out in a future closet to deal with later. Pressure gage is good, meaning we didn't poke a hole in any of the tubes. So it's good to go. That wasn't too bad at all... It's the boiler that's the expensive part... It's almost summer now, and we might wait until we absolutely need it next winter.

Spring 09 Barbeque

2009-05-03T20:06:00.001-04:00

We had a small barbeque with a few friends during a little April heat wave. It was a llittle taste of summer.

Ping pong on a packed dirt floor

Tree Planting

2009-04-26T12:58:00.001-04:00

On Saturday we worked with a bunch of volunteers planting trees in the neighborhood. We planted 70 trees and quite a lot on 5th Street.

We put a "Serviceberry" tree in front of our place on 5th Street. I was just looking for a photo of the day we put a tree in on Randolph Street, and found it on my phone.

Contruction Continues

2009-04-24T21:51:00.000-04:00

Yeah! Hi Fives all around! Floor in the studio is nearly ready to be poured!

This was quite a dusty day... We had to hire an excavator to come and break up the old screwed up concrete in the space that will eventually be the studio. Behind him, starting the wall between the studio and the kitchen / offices.

Oops! Took out too big a chunk of concrete. We now have a hole in our bathroom floor.

Salvaging / Reusing

2009-04-24T21:14:00.001-04:00

We have been pulling stuff from a great old warehouse nearby. There's a cool older eccentric couple who live there and who among other things have built a small cruiser boat powered with a wood burning oven steam engine. They are getting rid of some of their salvaged stuff collected over the years. We got about 20 radiators, a lot of wood - cedar and pine, some cool old movie lights and a bathroom and kitchen sink. Not only is it cheap, but it's such cool shit and it's nice to breathe new life into it, build with materials from the industrial soul of the city.

The Looking Glass Studio - the recording studio owned by Philip Glass that my uncle Michael has been involved with for years recently closed its operations in Lower Manhattan. Quite a sad end of an era but I had the good fortune of talking to the right person at the wrong time. I was put in touch with the guy doing the demo, and I got ahold of a truck, drove up to New York and got a whole bunch of 1" thick studio glass panels (5' wide), two huge double-insulated sliding glass doors, a bunch of acoustic sound baffles, some studio racks and all the studio wiring I could get my hands on... A huge amount of valuable stuff for virtually no cost. It'll all come in handy. Anyway here's a link to the Looking Glass Site.

120 windows in about 10 trips in the Tacoma. Why so many windows you may ask? Stay tuned.

Finding Materials

2009-04-16T14:36:00.000-04:00

The other day Catherine was out running and happened upon a bunch of guys up the street who were breaking up a slate sidewalk and throwing it in a dumpster. She got two truckloads of the stuff...! Slate's actually pretty expensive when you buy it, so I'd say we got pretty lucky.

Construction Photos

2009-04-01T20:55:00.000-04:00

1 1/2" industrial pine flooring. You can see here the remants of the old floor line by the window. This floor we're building will not go all the way to the window. There will be a 6' atrium entry hall going all the way up the ceiling - which is about 40' high. It's at least some way to preserve the majesty of the building's height.

Our cat, Verna, poking her head up... She has got a nice playground. What you see below: We don't have any storage space out of the weather except in this construction zone, so there's a bunch of furniture, suitcases, boxes of books etc that sits under all this stuff, getting rained on with nails and dust... oh well.

Hi 5 #3: Construction

2009-03-18T11:36:00.000-04:00

There was a lot of masonry and a structural beam that needed attention first

We are building a 2nd floor level out of reclaimed lumber. We spent a long time hunting down the right pieces - big 12x8 trusses from one site, steel ibeams from another site, floor joists from a house being taken down in New Jersey, etc. You meet a lot of characters in the demolition-salvage business anywhere I imagine... and in Philly, they're even weirder.

Building a wall on 5th Street. Some of our workers are Mexican guys who live next door. They're nice guys and do good work.

The holes in the wall were Catherine's idea. Right now they are closed during construction but they will eventually be open so people can peep through.

Hi 5 #2: The Place

2009-03-05T21:25:00.000-05:00

Thankfully, and contrary to popular belief, we are not living in a construction zone. Our house shares a wall with the warehouse, but it's actually a separate building. It was once a machine shop, and still kind of feels like one. It's a 3-story house. A "trinity" (father, son, holy ghost) - a strange Philly term.

The 3rd floor, our bedroom...

Building some shelves out of salvaged wood...

The 2nd floor: a temporary studio... Most stuff is still in boxes.

The 1st floor: a living room and kitchen. Rustic chic.

The yard is gigantic. The dream is that it will eventually be planted with trees, bamboo groves, vegetable garden, etc. How hard can it be to dig up 110 feet of asphalt? That's right, 110 feet.

The yard used to used as an architectural salvage business. The previous owner stored tons of stone, doors, oddities in the yard. We overlapped with him for 6 months when we first moved in. When we bought the place, we gave him 6 months to move his stuff out. He took every minute of it, and was out at midnight exactly 6 months later.

The building was full of salvage too. You could barely walk through it. There were little corridors to squeeze between the stuff.

Hi 5 #1: Introduction

2009-03-03T19:52:00.000-05:00

Simply put, this is an ongoing blog about a project in Philadelphia. Catherine and I bought a building a few months ago and are transforming it into recording studio and gallery space. A lot of people have been asking us for photos and I figure that we might as well start a blog and have a central location for that stuff - and maybe make it a little interesting to read at the same time. And um... maybe explain a bit of why we haven't been so good about keeping in touch.

A Postcard

"Here we are in front of our building" is in familiar handwriting on the back. "Hope we survive the winter...!" ... "Say hello to the fam!" It seems kind of like a Niagara Falls or Grand Canyon snapshot... Our pleased grins seem vaguely unaware that we're probably totally nuts to have just spent everything we own on a decaying building in North Philadelphia. "Here's having a good time from the land of urban decay! Have a pina colada on us!"

Here is a view of the building from further away. The main building was the Charles Maas Brewery in it's former life. This facade was the entrance. At some point, the building was used to repair trolleys. We live in a little house in the back which you can't really see from this angle. The house was once a machine shop. The floorboards are big crazy hewn lumber that looks like it was chopped by hand with an axe. And it's painted orange.

A bar made out of old porch railings.