Lately, he has artfully renovated some buildings, as a studio and a community center, in an especially devastated area.
"It's not one of those buildings where you just save the facade". The Los Angeles Community Redevelopment Agency is also interested in keeping the building intact as a studio or dinner theater, said Helmi Hisserich, the agency's regional administrator.
Now that businesses are starting to take an interest, the concern is that the local population and their alternative ways of life will no longer be accommodated for; it's hard to keep using an abandoned building as a neighbourhood art studio after Costa have bought it out for refurbishment.
Rick Rubin owns the building, which functions largely as a studio and a residence for whoever is recording there.
He used the red brick building, built in 1924, as a studio, warehouse and presentation space before it became a museum; it had 27,000 visitors last year.
Her daughter, Eva Ng, 36, said the building had been leased as a studio space for the art collective and was not used as residences.
Again and again, in the show's century of buildings, one sees Ken Hedrich and the stable of photographers employed by the firm channel reflected or direct light to set off the best parts of a building, just as a George Hurrell studio portrait might capture a starlet's best angle.
At the back of the property is an elevated area suitable as a building site for a studio or guest cottage.
These days, he works out of the Greenport home that he and his wife, Françoise (known as Bunny), bought in 1999, building a studio in the backyard.
Given that it is a studio, there are a lot of dogs in the building as well.
