Silver Factory
Coordinates: 40°44′50″N 73°59′02″W / 40.747268°N 73.98396°W
The Factory was the name of Andy Warhol's New York City studio, which had three different locations between 1962 and 1984. The original Factory was on the fifth floor at 231 East 47th Street, in Midtown Manhattan. The rent was one hundred dollars per year. Warhol left in 1967 when the building was scheduled to be torn down to make way for an apartment building. He then relocated his studio to the sixth floor of the Decker Building at 33 Union Square West near the corner of East 16th Street, where he was shot in 1968 by Valerie Solanas. The Factory was revamped and remained there until 1973. It moved to 860 Broadway at the north end of Union Square. Although this space was much larger, not much filmmaking took place there. In 1984 Warhol moved his remaining ventures, no longer including filming, to 22 East 33rd Street, a conventional office building.
The original Factory was often referred to as the Silver Factory. In 1963, artist Ray Johnson took Warhol to a "haircutting party" at Billy Name's apartment, decorated with tin foil and silver paint, and Warhol asked him to do the same scheme for his recently leased loft. Silver, fractured mirrors, and tin foil were the basic decorating materials loved by early amphetamine users of the sixties. Name covered the whole factory in silver, even the elevator. Warhol's years at the Factory were known as the Silver Era. Aside from the prints and paintings, Warhol produced shoes, films, sculptures and commissioned work in various genres to brand and sell items with his name. His first commissions consisted of a single silkscreen portrait for $25,000, with additional canvases in other colors for $5,000 each. He later increased the price of alternative colors to $20,000 each. Warhol used a large portion of his income to finance the Factory.
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