Ed Higgins

In 1976, with a recently earned art degree, E.F. Higgins III moved from Colorado to the Lower East Side. A small advertisement in the Village Voice led him to a rent-stabilized place on Ludlow Street for just $100 per month. Forty-three years later, Ed has never lived anywhere else. As expected, his rent has risen over the last four decades. He now pays “$500 and change” for his one-bedroom. Upon arriving in Manhattan, the Midwestern-born artist became part of an art scene that was antithetical to what was happening anywhere else. Ed was a founding member of the Rivington School, a group of anti-commercial artists who took the city’s open land as their own, creating make-shift gallery spaces and performance centers in basements and on vacant lots. A painter and printmaker by trade, Ed is a part of the mail art movement, which involves sending art through the mail via postcards, decorated objects, and original stamps. 6sqft recently toured Ed’s apartment, which is full of his own Doo Da Post stamps, mail art that was sent to him, paintings, hand-written notes, and so many tchotchkes it’s hard to discern one room from the next.
See inside and meet Ed