 The streets between 8th Street and 14th Street between Fifth and Third Avenues attracted many serious painters and sculptors where studio and living space could be found at a relatively inexpensive cost.Finding the audience for vanguard contemporary art to be small and the venues in which to show few artists began to band together to launch and maintain galleries as a solution to the lack of other showing opportunities.Thus began a neighborhood in which several (some now legendary) co-operative galleries were formed, and a few non co-operative galleries as well.