The fallout has been anything but picture-perfect.
A financially troubled Brooklyn darkroom closed for good this week — but members say the shutdown took an ugly turn when clients’ artwork and supplies were allegedly left on the sidewalk for anyone to grab.
Former members accused Bushwick Community Darkroom of abruptly placing pink and maroon storage lockers packed with customers’ possessions along Himrod Street on Monday, shortly after the business said it could no longer keep up with rent payments.
One devastated member told The Post they lost photographic paper and negatives that had been kept inside a secured locker — only to later discover the lock had been cut and the contents were allegedly taken, either from inside the facility or after the locker was put outside.
“I was profoundly distraught and confused, and it made me feel betrayed,” said the member, who requested anonymity.
Clients of the darkroom and film lab said the closure blindsided them, leaving them no opportunity to retrieve items they had been paying as much as $300 a month to store at the space.
BCD later posted a photo on Instagram showing the unlocked lockers sitting at the curb, urging people to: “Come & get em. If you wanna throw us a few bucks cool if not just take em.”
Other members aired similar complaints online, though BCD forcefully denied the allegations — at one point reportedly calling an accuser a “f–king c–t” after she asked fellow members to check whether they had mistakenly taken her artwork amid the chaos.
The BCD claimed that “vultures” had descended on the lockers in a now-deleted post, before reversing course to say that the lockers had been cleared before they were put out on the street.
The darkroom, which opened in 2011, had launched an online fundraiser earlier this month to raise “$39,000 to reinstate BCD’s lease” — a financial burden that owner Lucia Rollow could no longer cover.
The effort collected over $9,000 in donations, a total that organizers deemed this week would not be enough to save the darkroom.
Rollow did not immediately respond to The Post’s request for comment.
It’s not the first time the BCD was embroiled in drama — Rollow was forced to pay out $50,000 in 2022 to settle a lawsuit with a former volunteer who accused her of running a “for-profit photography center” that “never paid him anything for the vast majority of his work.”
That former volunteer has since opened their own darkroom in Bed-Stuy.
