The old Germania Bank, a graffiti-covered wedge on the corner of Bowery and Spring, has been something of an odd duck since the last iteration of the bank moved out in the mid-1960s. A few years later, the photographer and artist Jay Maisel bought the Gilded Age relic for $102,000 and turned it into a 72-room, 35,000-square-foot single-family home, art studio, and storage space — one used, at least for a while, by a number of famous artist friends like Roy Lichtenstein and Adolph Gottlieb. Even so, it was hard to find a purpose for all that space; in 2008, Maisel’s daughter Amanda told New York that she’d recently discovered a room she didn’t know existed, one covered in mirrored shards. It was also a lot to keep up. The rundown-looking, spray-painted exterior convinced most passersby that the building, landmarked in 2005, was vacant, but Maisel kept the interior and the structure in good condition, if not quite up to blue-chip real-estate standards. The first floor became retail, hosting several pop-ups and other stores; it’s currently occupied by Supreme. But the rest of the building remained more or less vacant.
Until last fall, that is, when Industrious, the co-working company, leased the rest of the building. In February, it opened private offices on floors three through six. And in April, it plans to debut a new co-working concept on the 11,500-square-foot second floor: a “parlor” with three reservable zones ranging from the semi-private to the social, which both members and nonmembers can book starting at $145 an hour for a team of eight.
