Prime Produce
Prime Produce Guild Hall, also known as Prime Produce Apprentice Cooperative and Prime Produce, is a community co-working organization and event space in New York City.
Prime Produce consists of two organizational bodies. One is an incorporated nonprofit, Prime Produce Limited, that runs the co-working collective, cybernetics library, and community space in the building. The second is a cooperative, Prime Produce Apprentice Cooperative, that manages their building located at 424 West 54 Street.
History
Co-founded by Jerone Hsu, Prime Produce is listed in the Dramatists Guild directory describing itself as "support entrepreneurs, educators, and artists who share values of service and hospitality" by offering event and practice spaces. Prime Produce has hosted art exhibitions, screenings, staged readings, business networking events involving Pennsylvania's Lafayette College, and career panels for Cornell University.Prime Produce hosts Earthlings NYC, a turtle restoration project that cares for NYC turtles in need by rehabilitating them in the Prime Produce space before re-releasing the turtles into the wild or to permanent homes.
In 2022, Jamaican eatery Cafe 424 opened for business in the cafe space on the first floor of Prime Produce serving Jamaican cuisine.
Since 2023, Prime Produce has hosted meetings and events presented by the local Wikipedia chapter, Wikimedia New York City.
In December 2023, Prime Produce began hosting a New Year's Eve event dubbed the Shell Drop, featuring the lowering of an illuminated "Cosmic Turtle" sculpture outside the building at midnight, followed by an afterparty in the Guild Hall featuring screenings of works that had entered the public domain in the United States at the beginning of the new year. The choice of a turtle references the turtle rehab work of Earthlings NYC and the history of Turtle Island in indigenous North American folklore.