Photo by Ashley Corbin-Teich
The Yard is a creative co-working space at 33 Nassau Avenue, on the second floor above Spritzenhaus. With month-to-month private office rentals designed for one to seven people, The Yard is already the workday home for a number of local entrepreneurs, writers, graphic designs and start-up ventures including Wanderfly, a personalized travel recommendation site, as well as the music aggregator The Hype Machine.
“We have so many talented, creative people here!” says Morris Levy, The Yard’s founder and manager. Levy is charismatic and charming, a born and raised Brooklynite with a quick vernacular to match.
“This desk here,” Levy says, pointing to the large greeter’s desk in the lobby. “We made this desk using old doors we found here in the space. We used all kinds of found materials during the renovation.”
As much as sustainable and repurposed construction is all the rage these days, Co-working is trending pretty damn hard, too. Greenpoint Coworking, on N. Henry Street and Norman Avenue, has been open for about a year with dedicated desk space starts at $25/day for non-members and $50/month plus $10/day for members. And more recently, Bushwick’s creative powerhouse 3rd Ward, on Morgan Avenue, has incorporated co-working memberships with dedicated desk space starting at $299/month.
Firat Parlak, the Creative Director of F&T Creative, rents space at The Yard and says his business, a boutique agency, benefits greatly from working the networking opportunities there. “There are also lawyers, accountants, writers and many other business,” Parlak says. “It makes it very convenient for me to work with them. I can stop by anytime during the day and get a quick consultation!”
As founder Morris Levy guided me on a tour of The Yard, through sunny corridors flanked by private office suites, I couldn’t help but be impressed by the design and composition of the space. The Yard is a structure within a structure: an exposed brick, wooden beam warehouse shell supporting this very sleek network of whitewall productivity pods and glass-lined conference rooms. Designed by local architect David Bers, the space does not attempt to be flashy or futuristic, and yet its clean, white aesthetic is exactly that: equal parts Kubrick’s 2001 and, umm… Greenpoint 2016?
“We’re just over 50% capacity now,” Levy says of the 93 individual office suites. “And that’s considering that we lost two weeks at the holidays and only just opened on November 15th.
Private Offices, with locking doors, rent for $395/month and include furnishings (desk, chair, lamp), conference room hours, Wi-Fi, unlimited faxing and scanning, generous printer quotas, kitchen space and other perks like free coffee, bicycle parking and discounts with local businesses.
But what you’re really buying — the true value of co-working spaces like The Yard — is the network of local talents working within them. That said, you may want to shop around and perhaps mingle with some tenants before taking the plunge and moving in. After all, a co-working space is only as good as its co-workers.
The Yard
33 Nassau Avenue, Greenpoint
workattheyard.com
(718) 782-7900
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