AVERILL PARK — Steve Lawrence arrived at “the house on the hill” as a plumber hired to replace a decrepit, ancient furnace on life support in the century-old Colonial at the center of a funky campus devoted to creativity called Arts Letters & Numbers, or ALN.
Two months later, following many hours of in-depth conversations with David Gersten, founding director and president of ALN, Lawrence was named associate director of the not-for-profit arts and education organization.
Lawrence thinks it was some kind of karmic convergence. Or, call it a twist of fate.
Lawrence learned the craft of plumbing and heating on Broadway in North Albany, just blocks from where Gersten learned the mechanic’s trade in his family’s century-old custom truck fabrication and repair business. in North Albany.
“We both are immersed in the teaching of craft as a culture,” Gersten said. “Steve has a unique set of life experiences, knowledge and skills. A plumber who has gone back to school to get his Ph.D. is a rare person.”
Toiling in a dank, dark basement of ALN’s main house, Lawrence wrestled for many days with an oil-guzzling behemoth and replaced it with a compact, high-efficient liquid propane unit. The job required Lawrence to dig into his problem-solving toolbox, above and beyond the basics of soldering and pipe sweating.
Gersten was impressed with the creativity Lawrence brought to the task. The two men shared a blue-collar ethos and still thrive on getting their calloused hands dirty. Neither forgot roll-up-their-sleeves apprenticeships as career trajectories carried them away from the shop floor.
Gersten, 57, became an architect and educator who is a professor and director of interdisciplinary learning at The Cooper Union in New York City. He established ALN in 2012 by repurposing an abandoned textile factory known as Faith…
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