The Bronx was an X factor in my mind,” says artist Derek Fordjour. We visited 13 of them, most of whom had come from more cramped spaces in other parts of town. Today, there are about 50 artists, furniture-makers, ceramicists, and architects - along with NY Sluggers Baseball Academy - in the building. Gradually, word spread about the building. Together, they broke it up into four separate studios, sharing one and subletting the other three. She found the building while walking through the neighborhood and rented 4,000 square feet, which turned out to be more than she needed, so she brought in fellow artist and SVA colleague Steve DeFrank.

“And we weren’t really sure what to do with it.” That was three years ago, when artist and School of Visual Arts faculty member Judy Mannarino was looking for new studio space. It was like 15,000 square feet,” says Barry Altmark, who handles leasing for his family concern. When a moving-and-storage company occupying the entire fifth floor left for New Jersey, “we had this big block of space available.

(Its M1-2 zoning doesn’t permit residential use.) But two decades later, more and more artists began looking to the neighborhood. When the Altmark Group purchased the building in 1994, it housed light manufacturing, and in part, it still does. It might as well be a blinking neon sign heralding the changes taking place in Port Morris, the Bronx, which is becoming the latest postindustrial refuge for people who need studio space. You can see the telephone number plastered across the side of the handsome old brick building at 728 East 136th Street as you walk from the Cypress Avenue 6-train stop.

Separate art studio