Slated for 2026, a long-vacant Essex Crossing space is turning into CANYON, a 40,000-square-foot playground for screens, speakers and after-dark culture. Get ready to stay late.
New York’s Lower East Side is getting a fresh kind of cultural hangout. CANYON will convert an unused chunk of Essex Crossing into a venue where video works, sound pieces and marathon performances take center stage, matching the city’s appetite for art that unfolds over time.
Behind the project are philanthropist Robert Rosenkranz and Joe Thompson, the founding director of MASS MoCA. Their shared goal is to give time-based artists room to stretch ideas about surveillance, artificial intelligence and climate anxiety without the pressure of a quick hit.
Architects New Affiliates are working inside the existing shell rather than wiping it clean. Plans call for 18,000 square feet of galleries, a 60-foot skylit atrium and a 300-seat hall, with a restaurant and bar threaded through the layout.
Hospitality is the watchword. Drinks are welcome in the galleries, chairs are meant to be pulled up and the mood aims to feel more like a friend’s loft than a white cube.
Programming is still under wraps, though early talk points to a city-wide survey of Ryoji Ikeda and Hans Ulrich Obrist’s “Worldbuilding,” the gaming-minded exhibition that has been touring internationally.
Electronic Arts Intermix, Rhizome and the ARChive of Contemporary Music have signed on as resident partners, hinting that the nightly soundtrack will be as forward as the visuals. Opening doors in 2026 never felt so close.
