On Sept. 17, 2025, a five-alarm fire broke out at the historic warehouse BWAC had inhabited for 35 years. The fire burned through the night, and by the following morning, it had destroyed dozens of small businesses and artists studios.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Nearly everything at BWAC \u2014 which had been preparing for its fall show \u2013 was destroyed, and the org learned a few months later that it would never be able to return to its longtime home.\u00a0<\/p>\n
![\"red](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/DSC_1421.jpg\")
The fire destroyed BWAC\u2019s longtime home, along with dozens of small businesses and studios. File photo by Lloyd Mitchell<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen you\u2019re in a fire, and you lose your home, what do you do? You move in with family or friends. And we\u2019re finding family and friends we didn\u2019t even know we had,\u201d said BWAC president Alicia Degener.\u00a0<\/p>\n
In the last year, neighbors have stepped up<\/a> to support the nonprofit and its mission of giving artists affordable space to exhibit. Powerhouse Arts<\/a> offered free exhibition space for BWAC\u2019s first post-fire show, the org is now using space at The Whale<\/a> for a \u201cnominal fee.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWhat we want to celebrate is the fact that artists are still creating,\u201d said BWAC president Alicia Degener.<\/p>\n Degener said she lost around 80% of her body of work in the fire. BWAC wasn\u2019t impacted by the flames, but by the millions of gallons of water pumped into the building to extinguish them. At \u201cOne Year Later,\u201d she\u2019s exhibiting a collection of water color paintings wrecked by the blaze.<\/p>\n \u201cThey got all washed away, except for the line drawing, which actually is still really beautiful,\u201d she said. \u201c \u2026 I have one whole little room, it has like 12 of my watercolors that were washed away because of the fireboat. I mean, the fireboat saved the building, but my watercolors didn\u2019t fare so well.\u201d<\/p>\n Some artists stopped creating altogether after the fire, Degener said \u2013 not just BWAC member artists, but other people who had studios in the warehouse and found themselves without a place to work.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWe have to continue. We have to keep making art, it\u2019s important for our own well-being and mental health to do it,\u201d Degener said. \u201cMy studio mate at The Whale literally lost everything \u2026 and we were just talking about how much better we feel now that we\u2019ve made new art \u2026 it\u2019s healing.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Hisham Youssef had around five sculptures at BWAC when the fire tore through. A Pennsylvania resident, Yousseff joined BWAC after he was accepted to a few juried exhibitions there.<\/p>\n \u201cThe space was fantastic, in Red Hook. I was enthralled with the space and the ideas for the shows, the concepts for the shows were really interesting to me,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s also an opportunity to exhibit in New York, and then the people who I met were just open and inviting.\u201d<\/p>\n Youssef was in Pennsylvania when the fire broke out, and heard about it from a friend. It was weeks before he and the rest of the artists could get inside to see what they could save. All of his pieces were saved, he said, and triaged by on-site art conservators \u2014 but none can be exhibited inside. Mold keeps growing back on the pieces, even after the conservators\u2019 careful work and despite his best efforts treating them with rubbing alcohol to keep the growth at bay.\u00a0<\/p>\n Among his ruined pieces was \u201c100 Hands,\u201d sculptures of his own hands \u2014 50 left and 50 right \u2014 carved from wood harvested at his rural home.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m getting older and getting some aches in my hands and things like that. Which really upset me,\u201d Youssef said. \u201cAnd so I did 100 hands.\u201d<\/p>\n For \u201cOne Year Later,\u201d he recreated them.<\/p>\n \u201cI didn\u2019t want to make 100 hands again, just to replace, as if [to say], \u2018OK, now they\u2019re back to new.\u2019 So I thought, in memory, I\u2019m just going to do 20 \u2026 And I could see the differences in them. My hands are more swollen now. Coming up through construction and working with stores and working with concrete and working with timber and things like that, your hands wear out.\u201d<\/p>\n Like Degener, Youssef feels encouraged seeing that he and his fellow artists have kept creating after experiencing such devastation.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s what artists do, right? We are producing art \u2026 as hard as it\u2019s been, everyone has. I can\u2019t say it feels good, but I don\u2019t even know what the word would be for it,\u201d he said. \u201cI think BWAC should be proud. And we can look at ourselves and we\u2019re pushing ourselves, which I think is a good thing.\u201d<\/p>\n Degener said she hopes the show acts as a sort of bookend to the fire and its aftermath.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThe whole thing about showing the work that got quote-unquote ruined, I want people to see it. I want people to see what happened, and then we can move on,\u201d she said. \u201cLet\u2019s close the book on it. You know, it\u2019s been a year. What have we done? We found other places to exhibit. We\u2019re re-finding ourselves. We\u2019re reinventing ourselves. This is a 48-year-old nonprofit. It\u2019s gone through many iterations of what it is and what it means to artists and what it gives to artists.\u201d<\/p>\n The accompanying exhibit, \u201cExclaim!\u201d is a national juried show featuring works with a strong message or call to action \u2014 whether it\u2019s political or personal.<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s about just using your voice, \u201cDegener said. \u201cThe world is just crazy right now. Half the world is at war, and all the other horrific things that are happening, [there are] just things that need to be said. So just use your voice.\u201d<\/p>\n The space BWAC is using at The Whale has beautiful views of Manhattan, she said, with 15-foot ceilings, and it spans 21,000 square feet, almost as large as the old BWAC in Red Hook. It\u2019s not a permanent home \u2014 Degener and the team are still searching for a but for now, it\u2019s letting BWAC serve its artists the way it always has.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI know in my heart we\u2019re not going back to Red Hook, and I don\u2019t want to be sad about it because I\u2019m not,\u201d she said. \u201cYou know, life changes and that\u2019s it. We\u2019re still together. We\u2019re still doing BWAC. BWAC is still BWAC. That\u2019s just somewhere else in Sunset Park.\u201d<\/p>\n![\"BWAC](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/BWAC-Fall26_1YrLater_CWells-GoodNeighbors-300-e1789597231317.jpg\")
Conrad Wells\u2019 painting \u2018Good Neighbors\u2019 survived the fire at BWAC last year. Image courtesy of Conrad Wells\/BWAC ![\"colorful,](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/BWAC-Fall26_1YrLater_CDorr-NoOneSleeps-300-e1789597267473.jpg\")
Chuck Dorr\u2019s piece \u201cNo One Sleeps\u201d is featured in the exhibit. Image courtesy of Chuck Dorr\/BWAC<\/p>\n![\"wooden](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/hand-sculpture-bwac.webp\")
Youssef\u2019s piece \u201c100 Hands\u201d in the flooded warehouse last year. File photo courtesy of Alicia Degener ![\"man](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/IMG_9194.jpeg\")
Wells with his painting and Youssef\u2019s reconstructed hands at The Whale. Photo courtesy of Alicia Degener<\/p>\n![\"mixed](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/BWAC-Fall26_1YrLater_LFiore-Mills-CityGarden-300-e1789597439552.jpg\")
BWAC artists have continued to make new work, despite the tragedy. Image courtesy of Lenore Fiore-Mills\/BWAC<\/p>\n![\"use](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/BWAC-Fall26_Exclaim_CHeiland-UseYourVoice-300-e1789597678326.jpg\")
Candy Heiland\u2019s piece \u201cUse Your Voice\u201d embodies the themes of the exhibit \u201cExclaim!\u201d Image courtesy of Candy Heiland\/BWAC<\/p>\n