"photography is dead..."

[bob carnie]

I had my Darkroom listed on the Ilford http://www.localdarkroom.com/ from the start, maybe 3-4 years.

No cost, bring paper.

Not one call or email is all that time, until recently. The message was not positive. I removed my listing, the darkroom remains open to people who know me.

I built a rental darkroom with five working stations , huge sink and put it out there for rent... 3 people in one year ... 2001era... never again.

[Tin Can]

I imagine San Francisco rent is really high, like Toronto a similar building 401 Richmond Street which houses Gallery 44 a facility much like Rayko is currently under property tax review. Basically as the story goes such review is based
on the highest property usage, and then passed on to the owners to pay and ultimately pass on to each space within . The owners of 401 took an old building filled it with willing art groups, many publicly funded or trying to get money from the same sources.
Now their rent is going through the roof, as King and Spadina is one of the hottest space markets in the GTA .

This happened in The Distillery District and many other areas of Toronto , what is the solution ? , not sure as long as the building market is so hot , these kinds of situations keep on happening. I feel for Rayko but I doubt any one group will come in and save the day for photography.

Space is the single most expensive commodity in running a business, hydro and services next, when they start getting out of whack based on the Gross amount any facility can produce , a sad demise is inevitable.

Same thing happened to our Artist owned Condo building. Taxes skyrocketed, as millionares moved into our former ghetto which still has daily shootings. We even had a self imposed form of 'sales price control', which I just helped eliminate so we can sell at market price. When taxes jumped the idealists changed philosophy.

I am a realist....

[Jac@stafford.net]

Same thing happened to our Artist owned Condo building. Taxes skyrocketed, as millionares moved into our former ghetto which still has daily shootings. We even had a self imposed form of 'sales price control', which I just helped eliminate so we can sell at market price. When taxes jumped the idealists changed philosophy.

I am a former Chicagoan, and like Randy Moe I lived through cases where endowed buyers raised rents just enough to force out the impoverished, made 'cool' renovations and advertised to us young artists to move in, and only five years later we had to flee due to enormously inflated rents.

Thus the definition of Gentry, oh, and greed.
.

[Leigh]

...the darkroom remains open to people who know me.

Where?

- Leigh

[Tin Can]

Chicago

Where?

- Leigh

[Leszek Vogt]

Randy, how do you survive this ? If one listens to the news, there seem to be hail of bullets (every weekend in Chic)....and making enlargements/development may not be the first thing on people's minds.


Les

[Jac@stafford.net]

Randy, how do you survive this ? If one listens to the news, there seem to be hail of bullets (every weekend in Chic)....and making enlargements/development may not be the first thing on people's minds.

I'm a former Chicagoan. Believe me, the incidents are localized and pretty predictable. Randy Moe lives in a highly desirable area. He's very smart, hip, street wise and got in there early. A great neighborhood, a great building. It also helps that he worked in a profitable hands-on field before retiring.

Randy Moe is one of my admired.
.

[Tin Can]

Randy, how do you survive this ? If one listens to the news, there seem to be hail of bullets (every weekend in Chic)....and making enlargements/development may not be the first thing on people's minds.


Les

I just spent hours writing and rewriting a reply.

It became a free verse poem.

I feel I cannot post it here or anywhere.

[Jac@stafford.net]

Photography is not dead.

A better title to the thread is, "Real estate greed rolls over yet another enterprise."
.

[pjd]

I had my Darkroom listed on the Ilford http://www.localdarkroom.com/ from the start, maybe 3-4 years.

No cost, bring paper.

Not one call or email is all that time, until recently. The message was not positive. I removed my listing, the darkroom remains open to people who know me.

Randy, thanks for sharing that link. First time I'd heard of that darkroom sharing site, there's someone fairly nearby (in Seoul) with a darkroom on there, maybe I can bridge the language divide and find a local LF pal around here (or maybe not, but I can try

Sorry to read that you didn't get a good response when you listed your darkroom, it's a generous offer to share resources like that.