Image: http://nyc.socialinnovation.org/the-building
Wander over to the West-side highway in upper Chelsea, New York and you'll find yourself quickly out of the hustle and bustle of the city and in an unfamiliar landscape of warehouses, industrial-looking lots.
Towering imperiously above these buildings is the Starrett-Lehigh building. Impossible to miss and as iconic as the day it was built in 1931 (to enable railway carriages to unload directly inside the building from the West Side piers).
We found ourselves peering up at this impressive structure arriving for our most recent pop-up yesterday. We were visiting the NY headquarters of the Center for Social Innovation. CSI, as it's known for short, is one of the only co-working spaces worldwide that requires tenants to have a social mission beyond their focus on profit. A fitting match for Keap's philosophy.
"The Centre for Social Innovation is a space created exclusively for individuals and organizations with a social mission. This includes nonprofits, co-ops, social enterprises and social businesses. It also includes individual artists, activists, entrepreneurs and other freelancers and 'independents' committed to positive social change, as well as the writers, web designers, bookkeepers, lawyers and others who support this growing sector. We don't care if an organization is nonprofit or for-profit – we only care that you are dedicated to creating a brighter future."
Salad Club at CSI
Fun fact: Keap considered the CSI as our home back in early 2015. Sadly, as we couldn't melt wax there (it's desk spaces only), we ended up at our wax-friendly home of Industry City. However we've retained a deep soft-spot for CSI and the work they do, and were honored to be invited to do a pop-up in the space during their weekly Salad Club lunch.
As always, we had a superb time introducing ourselves to the community and sharing our stories of social missions with the amazing CSI tenants. We met people tackling prisoner education with iPads through to re-usable shopping bags built into wristbands! Thanks for having us CSI; we'll come back to your historic home any time you'd like.
