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Almost exactly one year after news of art auction house Christie’s plans to convert half of the hulking New York Dock warehouses in Red Hook into a state-of-the-art-storage facility surfaced, the Brooklyn Eagle reports that the Christie’s Fine Art Storage Services (CFASS) finally opened at 62 Imlay Street (pictured) in early August. Only two of the building’s six stories have been fitted out with all the high-tech gear needed to store multi-million dollar art collections, and thus far the business (which has a 30-year lease) employs a team of five, only two of whom “have ties to the Red Hook art scene,” whatever that means. The building’s makeover sounds intense.
Given the Eagle‘s description, the Brooklyn CFASS (the auctioneer’s third, with sister facilities in London and Singapore) might be the closest we’ll ever get to building a working replica of the Death Star:
A beeping soundtrack of high-tech security accompanied a tour of the gleaming corridors. Purified, dehumidified air, kept at a constant 70 degrees, wafted overhead. The original gray, pebbled floors were buffed to a smooth finish. A multimillion-dollar elevator system, capable of carrying a classic Rolls Royce, bookends halls bathed in brilliant white and shimmering chrome, a kind of wainscoting that adds protection to the steel-enforced walls. Hundreds of motion-sensor video cameras sprout from the ceilings and walls, inside and out.
Yep, sounds like a great addition to the neighborhood. (Curbed)