SHELTER: LOFT IN FORMER FACTORY
Toni Schlesinger
“The Village Voice”
New York City, New York
March 3, 1998, p. 13

Location:Long Island City
Rent: $950
Square Feet: 1150
Occupants: Georges Le Chevallier (painter, art teacher, waiter); Carrie Shafer (massage therapy student; waitress, Armani Café); Brooklyn (pug); Pinche Chucha, Coco, Cody (cats)

You live just a few blocks from the foot of the Queensborough Bridge. Only recently I was sitting underneath the bridge at Dunkin’ Donuts discussing the N train with a policeman. He didn’t know if the train ran across the bridge or underground. He’s in transit! Then I asked other people if there was a bus that ran across the bridge and they didn’t know. Everyone was so stupid that afternoon. Anyway, there’s an Alfa Romeo car in your hallway!
[Georges] It belongs to the sculptor next door. He brought it up in the elevator. We got this place in December’96 and moved in May’ 97. We were living in Astoria but my studio was 15 blocks away. I wanted to live and work in one place. I looked in Williamsburg- very expensive.

The loft is all white, red, and yellow.
Very Caribbean. I grew up in Puerto Rico, though I was born in Paris. My father worked for Air France. I came to New York in ’92 to do my master’s at Hunter.

You said it cost you $2,500 to fix up the loft.
[Carrie] Originally it was just a big rectangle. We got an old industrial heater. When we put it on, everything flies away.

You have 100 videotapes of soccer cup finals. Also, one side of your loft is all windows. How can you stand so much sun? It gives me the willies. Do you have air-conditioning?
No. Last summer it was so hot. But we were afraid to open the windows because the cats would jump out. [Georges] But it got to the point where if they jumped, they jumped.

What’s that beautiful painting over there of the goat with the hole in its neck?
I titled it “Chupa que Cupa. I was inspired by the stories in Puerto Rico about a monster in the countryside. [Carrie] People reported that there were holes in farm animals’ necks and all the blood was sucked out.

Who lives in that cage?
The dog. [Georges] She’s a pug. We take her to Pug Hill in Central Park. It’s safer for pugs to play with their own size because their eyes can pop out easily if a dog is playing rough with them. [Carrie] We’re building a bigger, four-by-eight room for her. We have to. She’ll eat anything. Once she ate all the food in the cat feeder. You could see her stomach. Today she ate a Handi Wipe.

She has the hiccups.
Sometimes I wonder, is this more difficult than it’s supposed to be? She’s just a 10- pound dog. The vet told us, she’s not going to be Lassie by Tuesday.

She’s never going to be Lassie! Lassie would rescue people. Like if a tree fell on a person’s leg, then Lassie would run down the road with her hair streaming in the wind to tell Marmie to get help, or she would nip at the elbow of Corey, the forest ranger. Lassie knew how to use her noodle. Frankly, if anyone would know how to get across the Queensborough Bridge, it would be her.