The Invisible Dog Art Center facts for kids
The Invisible Dog Art Center is a cool museum and art space located in Boerum Hill, a neighborhood in Brooklyn, New York City. It was started in 2009 by a person named Lucien Zayan. The center got its interesting name because it used to be a factory that made "invisible dogs." These were novelty items, and you can still see old factory parts like buckles and molds around the building today. Now, The Invisible Dog is a place for visual art, live performances, and even has artists who live and work there. Many artists get ideas from the building's unique industrial history.
The Story of The Invisible Dog
Lucien Zayan first saw the building in 2008 and immediately had a vision for it. He shared his idea with the owner, and soon, The Invisible Dog Art Center began! When Lucien took over, the building was full of old factory items. He cleaned it up and gathered all the leftover pieces from its factory days. Then, he held a big flea market. He later said that what looked like "junk" at first turned out to be a "treasure-trove" of cool vintage items, especially thousands of belts from the 1960s.
In March 2013, a magazine about video games and art called Kill Screen used the building. They hosted their annual two5six conference there. This conference happens every year in a different spot in New York City.
About the Building
The Invisible Dog is located at 51 Bergen Street. This building is quite old, as it was built way back in 1863. In the 1950s, it was bought and used as a factory to make belts and jewelry. Then, in the 1970s, the fun idea of the "invisible dog" was actually invented right here!
When Lucien Zayan found the building in 2008, it was packed with lots of old stuff and furniture. Also, all 68 of its windows were broken and needed to be replaced.
The building has a special old-fashioned freight elevator that you have to operate by hand. Along the elevator shaft, there's a large painting by an artist named Giuseppe Stampone. This mural, created around 2009, shows illustrated text from Dante's famous book, Inferno, written in its original Italian language.
