Lofty Ambitions

Since the 1950s, New York’s downtown lofts have found new life as hubs for multi-faceted creative expression. The latest to take the mantle is Quarters, a just-opened concept shop and creative gathering space by In Common With spanning 8,000 square feet in TriBeCa. The designer firm’s co-founders Nick Ozemba and Felicia Hung were eager to tap into the storied lineage of the neighborhood.

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“We were inspired by TriBeCa’s artistic history and the participatory spirit of 1960s ad hoc art spaces,” Ozemba tells Family Style. Likewise, the new enterprise, he describes, offers a “dynamic environment that embodies our commitment to community, craftsmanship, and collaborative design.” In addition to the full-service bar on the premises, there’s also a mini-café area equipped with an espresso station that offers daytime coffee service. A dining area extending from the bar functions as a secret back room when cordoned off with pocket doors.

Across the interiors, a subdued, earthen-toned design scheme sees pieces by the duo mixed with handpicked, refurbished vintage items. There’s also original commissions contributed by Ozemba and Hung’s peers across art and design. The hand-embroidered fabric lighting that fills each space is all In Common With, while slab-built ceramic lighting and tiles are the result of a partnership with sculptor Shane Gabier. “Felicia and I are both committed to preserving craft techniques,” says Ozemba. Made in one of the oldest masonry tile factories in the U.S., the tiles, he says, “are entirely handmade: hand-rolled, hand-cut, and hand-glazed without modern machinery. It honors the beauty of handmade craftsmanship.”

It’s in this same spirit that the pair turned to Italian artist Claudio Bonuglia to paint a mural encircling the Bar at Quarters, a culmination of the space’s high-end artisanal inclinations. While tones of beige, chestnut, olive-green, and soft pinks pervade the concept shop and lounge, Bonuglia’s painting expresses the theme of nature in a more literal, representation terms: from the depths of a thick forest crawling up the wall, to glimpses of a mountain range running just below ceiling, to the ceiling itself opening to a transfixing, fantastical underwater-scape, complete with marine life. “The scene in the bar contextualizes animal forms in an aquatic environment, referencing an ancient myth about a pet eel adorned with jewelry,” explains the artist. Painted furniture, he says, displays “organic abstractions,” further riffing on the concept.

For an interior originally designed to house the hardware of the city’s now-bygone manufacturing sector—and one still hovering just feet away from the gray, crowded streets below—it’s a truly transcendent visual to encounter within the dim, warm lighting of Quarters. Perhaps Ozemba puts it best in describing the fully realized vision: one epitomizing an “interior and brand that is unplaceable in time.”

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Quarters is now open at 383 Broadway, 2nd Floor, New York, New York, 10013.

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