"On a long list of exotic locales associated with the Dia Art Foundation — the dusty desert in New Mexico, rocky shoreline around Utah’s Great Salt Lake, the alien wilds of Marfa, Texas — is a remote destination a little closer to home: West 22nd Street between 10th and 11th Avenues. Though it now rates as prime real estate in one of the most development-mad districts of Manhattan, the idyllic Chelsea block was less desirable in 1987, when Dia set up shop with the quixotic aim of luring gallerygoers there from Soho. The neighborhood, inasmuch as it could then be deemed as such, consisted of working industry (automotive repair, marble cutters, warehouse space) and sidewalks that were empty at night. Across from Dia, there was a makeshift bar that sometimes spun off barbecues and stickball games in the street. On blocks nearby, there were gunfire blasts and gatherings in seedy S&M haunts and a general sense of dereliction that explains an art review with the headline: “Lugubrious Jenny Holzer Exhibit at One of the City’s Creepiest Spots.” Chelsea then was not like Chelsea now, with hundreds of gleaming galleries and luxury penthouses fetching more than $50 million — but, thanks in part to Dia’s prescient move, it would soon be on its way."

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