Please note that the content of this book primarily consists of articles available from Wikipedia or other free sources online. From the early 1950s through the mid 1960s (and beyond) in New York City, many galleries began as an outgrowth of an artistic community that had sprung up in a particular area of downtown Manhattan. The streets between 8th Street and 14th Street, between 5th and 3rd 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).