One of Brooklyn’s most iconic artist studio buildings is in a precarious state after a five-alarm fire ravaged the 155-year-old warehouse in Red Hook late Wednesday night into Thursday morning.Smoke filled the third floor of 481 Van Brunt Street at 11:35pm on September 17 before the fire spread to the roof, forcing more than 250 firefighters, EMS responders, and a marine fire boat dispatched to the Red Hook waterfront to tame the blaze. New York Fire Department (FDNY) officials said they believe the building was unoccupied at the time. Two firefighters sustained minor injuries.By the morning, part of the roof and the fourth floor had collapsed, and Van Brunt Street had flooded out. The building had taken on so much water from the firefight that it appeared to bow, sources at the scene said.Kevin Woods, chief of fire operations for the FDNY, told reporters Thursday that firefighting operations were still ongoing and that the deterioration of the building was “extensive.” The cause of the fire is still unknown. “Before we get in there, the engineers have to evaluate the structural stability,” Woods said. “With the amount of water going into this building and the amount of fire, with the damage to the roof structure and multiple floors, it’s going to take a while.” Smoke billowing from the building on September 17, 2025 (photos courtesy Megan Suttles)The Civil War-era warehouse is the spiritual center of Red Hook’s vibrant arts community, which has rebounded since Hurricane Sandy flooded its streets 13 years ago. The four-story commercial building contains dozens of artist studios and high-end design businesses and is home to the Brooklyn Waterfront Artists Coalition (BWAC), a 400-member, artist-run nonprofit that has hosted exhibitions on the first and second floors of its 25,000-square-foot space for 48 years.Artists have not been able to enter the building and determine the extent of devastation to their spaces. Managers for BWAC, which celebrated the opening of two group shows, Brooklyn Resilience and Aerosol Euphoria: Urban Street Art on Saturday, posted on Instagram that they were still assessing the damage with authorities and asked for support to help them rebuild.Anastasios Poneros, a mixed-media artist whose studio resides above BWAC’s space, was working late on an installation and left a few hours before the fire started. His studio’s windows were intact, and she hoped that any water damage from hoses and sprinklers his space sustained would be minimal. “I have a lot of works on paper, and they would be ruined,” Poneros told Hyperallergic. “It’s basically 15 years of my life packed into that 1,000 square feet of space. It’s bad news all around. I’m worried we’ll all get kicked out.”The day after the fire (photo Hrag Vartanian/Hyperallergic)Some artists already know that their entire life’s work has been lost.Grace Whiteside, a glass blower and performance artist, said she arrived at the scene at 7:30am and witnessed water pouring out of an open window like a “waterfall.” “Absolutely nothing is salvageable,” she said. “My entire livelihood was in that studio, either business-wise or art profession-wise. It’s possible the whole building will be condemned due to safety issues.”Meg Suttles, founder of the arts residency and gallery space Hot Wood Arts, told Hyperallergic that she was awakened by text messages from two of her studio neighbors who saw firefighters entering the building just before midnight. She took a cab and arrived at Van Brunt Street at 1am, and stayed up the entire night as her portion of the warehouse became engulfed in flames. “I made a lot of 2am calls when I knew it was going to be devastating,” Suttles said. “We’re just in shock today. I have 13 and a half years’ worth of artwork, plus things from undergrad that I did 20-something years ago, that’s all just gone.”The fire’s destruction has cast a cloud on Red Hook Open Studios, which is slated to celebrate its 10th anniversary this year on October 11–12. Suttles, who co-founded the festival, wasn’t sure how the event would adjust since a majority of open studios were on the pier and the building could remain closed to the public. For now, Red Hook business leaders have launched a GoFundMe campaign to help artists recover from the fire.“[Red Hook Open Studios] can still go on because there are artists elsewhere, but this is such a huge loss,” Suttles said. “I love this neighborhood, it’s such a magical place with unique people. I hope we don’t have to leave the neighborhood. I really hope we can rebuild somehow.”