Rubulad

Overview

Brooklyn's longest-running DIY arts-and-party collective, co-founded by Sari Rubinstein and Chris Thomas in 1993: an immersive, word-of-mouth loft environment that has moved through three locations across three decades and seeded the careers of House of Yes founders Kae Burke and Anya Sapozhnikova.

Rubulad began in 1993 when Sari Rubinstein (a Bennington College alumna and member of the Gamma Rays) and Chris Thomas, along with members of the Brooklyn bands Fly Ashtray, Uncle Wiggly, and Smack Dab, rented a 5,000-square-foot basement on South 5th Street in South Williamsburg for roughly $1,100 a month, cheap even then. Frustrated with the passive transaction of playing bars, they conceived the space as a living installation: movable walls carving out artist studios by day, and every surface (ceilings, rooftop, backyard) colonized by themed decor for the elaborately staged public events they held roughly once a month. The name is a phone-number acronym, mapping the keypad letters of their old 718 number. Word traveled by mailing list and friend-of-friend only; the door was staffed by about eight people, the bar by six, and the aesthetic aspiration was what Rubinstein called 'a holistic piece of art, an experiential environment.'

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