Secret Project Robot

Overview

Artist-run nonprofit art experiment rooted in south Williamsburg since 1998, incubator of the early-2000s Brooklyn indie underground (first NYC shows for Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Liars, TV on the Radio), birthplace of Bushwig drag festival, and one of the longest-surviving DIY institutions in the borough across five successive homes.

Secret Project Robot's lineage begins in 1998 when artist Erik Zajaceskowski rented the back half of a 1,000-square-foot second-floor loft at 401 Wythe Avenue, south Williamsburg (then a raw industrial fringe) and named it Mighty Robot, running it with John 'Fitz' Fitzgerald, Artur Arbit, and Etain Fitzpatrick as the self-styled 'Mighty Robot A/V Squad.' The space hosted some of the earliest New York City shows by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Liars, TV on the Radio, Lightning Bolt, Black Dice, and Oneida, among others, and organized parties in junkyards and at venues like the Polish National Home (later The Warsaw). In 2004, Zajaceskowski and Rachel Nelson (artist, curator, and political economist) co-founded Secret Project Robot as the space's formal successor, envisioning an expanded hybrid: art installation space, experimental music venue, and community hub. The name change coincided with a move into Monster Island, a 15,000-square-foot, three-story Kent Avenue complex also housing Kayrock Screenprinting, Live With Animals gallery, and Todd P's booking operation, where the annual Monster Island Block Party drew roughly 6,000 people. When Monster Island's lease expired in 2011, SPR relocated to 389 Melrose Street in Bushwick, a former auto-body shop whose 5,000-square-foot footprint included a large rear yard, two stages, three soundproofed repurposed metal freight containers used as artist studios, and gallery space housing twenty-seven artists across eight collaborative studios. The Melrose Street era shaped SPR's mature identity: it became an official 501(c)(3) nonprofit, opened the Happyfun Hideaway bar as a revenue engine to subsidize free and low-cost programming, and became the founding venue of Bushwig (est. 2012), the annual alternative drag and queer performance festival co-created by Matty 'Horrorchata' Mendoza and Babes Trust. Programming in this period ranged from installation exhibitions (Swoon, Maya Hayuk, Raul De Nieves) to experimental music (Spiritualized, Eartheater, FlucT, Laurie Anderson), soul and house dance parties (Jonathan Toubin's Soul Clap, Milksop queer dance night), and drawing brunches. A 50% rent increase forced closure of the Melrose Street location in September 2016. In May 2017 SPR reopened at 1186 Broadway in Bed-Stuy/Bushwick, taking over the former Soul 2 Soul nightclub (itself active since the 1980s), with new partner David Kadden joining Zajaceskowski and Nelson, and a new bar named Cuckoo. This iteration closed in April 2019, its two-year lease at an end. In late 2019 the founders encountered their original Wythe Avenue landlord, re-signed a lease, and reopened at 401 Wythe Avenue in March 2020, a homecoming during the pandemic renovation that produced a 2,400-square-foot space with artist studios, a ceramic studio, small gallery, and the Cloud Cuckoo Land bar, seating up to 75. As of 2026 SPR remains active at 401 Wythe, operating with the same nonprofit model that has sustained it through four relocations, five homes, ending where it began, over nearly three decades.

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