The Lot Radio

Overview

Brussels-born photographer François Vaxelaire launched this 501(c)(3) online radio station on February 7, 2016 from a 20-foot shipping container on a long-vacant triangular lot at 17 Nassau Avenue, sustaining itself entirely through a café kiosk and without brand sponsorship, and grew into what Barbie Bertisch of Love Injection calls 'the town square for New York's underground.'

The Lot Radio occupies a 20-foot reclaimed shipping container set on an 882-square-foot triangular lot at 17 Nassau Avenue in Greenpoint, at the intersection with Banker Street and North 15th Street, a site formerly home to a gas station and then privately owned and abandoned for roughly 40 years before François Vaxelaire spotted a 'for lease' sign in 2015. Vaxelaire, a Brussels native who had studied sociology in Belgium, professional photography and video in Mozambique, and media studies at the New School, spent approximately a year navigating the NYC Department of Buildings permitting process to legally place the container (fabricated on Long Island to meet code) on the land. For its first three years of operation the station had no commercial internet connection, ISPs quoted tens of thousands of dollars for service, and instead ran ethernet cable across Nassau Avenue from San Damiano Mission, the Franciscan church whose priests, Father Nicolas and Father Raphael, backed the project. The station launched on February 7, 2016 with sets from Discwoman, Matt FX, and Darker Than Wax FM, and almost immediately won the Mixcloud Online Radio Awards 'Best Online Radio Station, North America' for 2016. The container is split lengthwise: one half holds a broadcast studio equipped with Pioneer CDJ-3000s, CDJ-2000NX2s, Technics SL-1200s, and Funktion-One monitors; the other half serves as a café kiosk dispensing coffee, beer, wine, and snacks, the kiosk's revenue is the station's primary operating income. A 501(c)(3) non-profit structure (donations are tax-deductible) supplements café sales and merchandise. The space is open daily 10 a.m. to midnight, with picnic tables and later a public plaza (Banker's Anchor, established with the North Brooklyn Park Alliance and North Brooklyn Mutual Aid) on the adjacent footprint. A grapevine planted by an unknown visitor on opening day has survived every season. Programming philosophy is deliberately gut-driven and genre-agnostic: Vaxelaire assembled a core curatorial team, station manager and programming director Pauline Le Mell (a veteran of East Village Radio), programme director Chris Cherry (Trans-Pecos), and resident DJ and programme director Lloyd Harris (Lloydski), co-founder of Tiki Disco, who have together shepherded 200-plus resident selectors across house, techno, ambient, indie rock, punk, rap, and footwork. The longest-running show is Love Injection, hosted every Saturday morning at 10 a.m. since opening day by Barbie Bertisch and Paul Raffaele, whose fanzine and DJ partnership launched in 2015. All broadcasts have been archived to YouTube and SoundCloud since launch. Notable guests across the decade include Nina Kraviz, Hunee, Cerrone, George Clinton, A Guy Called Gerald, Kevin Saunderson, Four Tet (whose December 1st slot became a standing tradition), Floating Points, Yaeji, Juliana Huxtable, Channel Tres, PinkPantheress, Justin Strauss, and Kevin Parker of Tame Impala. Booker Sasha Cwalino (stage name 'deep creep') joined in 2017; Four Kamaal, who started as a barista, later became a booker. The Lot has expanded its footprint beyond Greenpoint: it co-produced a concert series in the adjacent San Damiano Mission (with proceeds funding the church's pipe organ restoration), streamed monthly from MoMA's Sculpture Garden for two-plus years, held residencies through Times Square Arts (including a month-long storefront and a post-lockdown red kiosk installation), collaborated with Mexican Summer on three editions of the Marfa Myths festival, co-hosts a stage at Horst Festival in Belgium, and produces a dedicated stage at Philadelphia's Making Time festival. In October 2024 the café and seating area were closed by city authorities because the station's application for permanent-structure status left it in a 'temporary undetermined status' with the Department of Buildings; radio broadcasts continued throughout. After eight months of renovations and approvals from the Office of Nightlife, Department of Health, and Department of Buildings, the kiosk reopened on July 11, 2025.

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