NIMBY

Hey BM and Nimby people,
I have a school photo-​project which I wanna shoot at NIMBY place. Do you know if I need to get a permission, is it for free or they have any charges, is it safe place to go?
I called them a loooot of times, shoot emails but no one responded back to me. Decided try Unilocalers’ help.
Thanks!

Both of the proprietor s get personally involved in projects and weigh in if your project excludes their violent frIends. I built the Alien Siege Machine. Both snook and pedroli «put pressure» on my project because their friend Sandra Meder got violent, hence I banned her. The three of them nearly killed my project. I built three orojects there: the trojan horse, anubis and the alien siege machine. Snook and Pedroli violated California Criminal Code in 2014.

Why does Oakland get all the great creative juice-​plus places to enjoy it? Spread it around would ya? I loved connecting with these folks at the Maker Faire this year.
btw, 65,000 square feet? only in Oakland could you get the people power to pull something so magnificent together. If you seek a satellite space we should talk.

Quite an amazing spot. Surrounding yourself with this much talent can make anyone feel inspired. Large all terrain art cars, sculptures & a mammoth garage to house all of them. I loved having the chance to see this place that births a lot of the famous moving art that happens at burning. Man.

AMAZING art warehouse scene!

Great place to inspire your creativity. Sometimes they use the large open space to throw benefit parties to help the artists out but that is secondary to the goals of the warehouse space.

NIMBY is an Oakland treasure. Think you’re a supporter of the arts, alternative culture, and/​or the DIY ethic? Then help keep it going by helping any way you can. Without everyone’s help, these sorts of DIY spaces can’t survive.
I rent a space here, and it’s a great place run by great people. The prices are pretty good for approx 380 sqft of space, and there are lots of interesting folks around most of the time.
And NIMBY’s famous parties are indeed as fantastic as people claim.
My only complaint is that it’s been a few months and all the various issues with the city have postponed promised improvements to my space, but that’s understandable given the issues with the city taking up everyone’s time.

NIMBY has a new home. After being burned out of their old location in West Oakland, they have an even LARGER location in East Oakland.
Nearly 60,000 square feet of enclosed space dedicated to Industrial Art.
If you need a large space for your metalwork creations NIMBY is definitely a place you may want to check out.
The new address off 85^th street is even dodgier than the last address, but the tenants are interesting people.

As a member of Interpretive Arson (
) I’ve spent a great deal of time at NIMBY. Occasionally it was for a party, but usually it was to weld, grind, wire, cut, build, destroy, work, etc on Dance Dance Immolation, 2pir, or some other art project. It was a space where we could do things that weren’t possible elsewhere. It was my introduction to the Bay Area fire art community before I even moved out here. I will miss it.

N.I.M.B.Y. houses a unique collective of creative types of all trades… blacksmiths, welders, bike fanatics, clown enthusiasts, fire artists, fire spinners, painters, custom cabinetry makers, large metal sculptors, theater set designers, K.S.W. to name a few. I’ve made so many interesting connections with extrememly talented folks renting my studio here over the past two years. Highly recommend this space as your next art studio location. Don’t miss their parties either! I’ve always had a friggin’ BLAST. Even when people were being frighteningly crazy, or getting beat up, or whatever… those problems always got solved quickly. What’s a party without a fight? Duh… ;)

My first trip ever to a COMMUNE! Hahah California is funny.
My office doesn’t have a Christmas party, but the Halloween party is totally amazing. The last two years we’ve had it here.
They have Dance Dance Immolation. Essentially, it’s DDR, but if you fuck up, the machine SHOOTS A GIGANTIC FIREBALL AT YOU. You wear a complete fireproof suit, and sign a waiver, but I’m sure this is HIGHLY illegal.
There are gigantic fire-​breathing sculptures, and remote-​controlled fire cars. Tessla coils provide lightning and, there are fire filled cauldrons dripping flaming goo.
The guy from our work who’s associated with these people recently moved to a different job, but hopefully we’ll still do the Halloween party here!

I love going to NIMBY.
I’ve been to a bunch of different parties there, and each one delivered.
Giant warehouse space converted for special uses.
Sometimes there’s a giant stage for bands to play.
Sometimes there’s a giant «ring» for battle bots to duke it out.
Sometimes they’re just firing off the tesla coils.
The outside space is enormous, and in the past i’ve seen:
a pulse-​jet powered wheel chair, a functional steam engine, and a full size half pipe.
The people who live there have generally be friendly to me, and the parties have generally been fun, but are sometimes poorly managed and the thing you REALLY came to see doesn’t end up happening until 5a.m.
Not a place for the prissy or faint of heart.

ALL the old school original San Francisco hard core punkers and art pioneers think this place is a JOKE. N.I.M.B.Y. must stand for negative-​idiot-​macho-​burner-​yuppies. 2 people got jumped and beaten up (one of them was a woman) there this week at a punk show. The guy who assaulted them was a roid raging blonde dreadlocked goon (who lives there) and who was twice their size. He berated the couple for sitting on the stairs inside the facility and yelled at them, «I live here!» as he started to twist the male sitter’s arm. When the assaulted man’s girlfriend begged the big dreadlocked jerk to,“please don’t break his arm,” she was shoved to the ground and grabbed by her arm as well. It was crazy and scary! The cops were called and arrived after which my horrified friends and I left.
The NIMBY folks had actually been burning stuff inside of the warehouse so I was also eager to get out of there because of the mysterious toxic smelling «art project» smoke. The place also stinks like pee and poo (they have overfilled port-​a-​potties instead of bathrooms) because drunk patrons relieve themselves in the corners!!! The atmosphere was like Altamont meets Dante’s Inferno. You take your life into your hands when you step foot into this awful place. There is no sensible security. These people are FASCIST jerks looking to fight. They call themselves the «art fag mafia» but they are neither. They charge you $ 20 to get in, lock you inside (no ins and outs) and charge you $ 4 for a Pabst Blue Ribbon or $ 5 for a mini-​cup of rot gut vodka. I am not kidding folks! Go check it out for yourself if you don’t believe me but don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Crème de la crème warehouse art scene .
Become a tenant or at least get yourself on the guestlist.

If you need a kickass place to build industrial art or want to go to a seriously interesting party then NIMBY is the place to be. 25,000 square feet of space, interesting tenants, and even a few 2.5 ton cranes at your disposal. Home of a 2 story tall tesla coil and a circa 1911 steam tractor if you’re lucky enough to see them running.