Four Loko parties, falling maggots, and first-floor strip clubs.
The building’s new fourth-floor tenants incorporated their venture as Peter’s Car Corp., and for the first several months, they spent their days wiring the space with electricity and installing plumbing and drywall, going to their day jobs, and sleeping. They also got to know the neighborhood.
Williams: The people below us were Swiss German filmmakers. In the back of their apartment, they built a giant glass swimming pool, and they were making an underwater film for six months.
Nuxoll: In less than a year, we had a place that we could also throw just, like, massive parties in. We did screenings on the roof of early work, what would become Rooftop Films — Debra Granik, who did Winter’s Bone, Sean Baker’s early short films — and had live music beforehand.
Around 2010, thanks to Facebook events, suddenly every single person was throwing a party.
Everybody had an Airbnb account in case they needed it. So if your roommate up and left, you could just rent the room out for a while — that kind of thing.
Troisi: There was this one guy who had 30 of those Ikea bunk beds in his loft, and, at any given time, there’d just be like 15 to 20 people living in there. He was essentially running a hostel.