Guarded by a languorous King Charles Spaniel and Maine Coon cat, Bill Beckley takes a moment to answer the door at his Soho loft. When he finally does, the bespectacled artist—a veteran of New York's 1970s conceptual scene—is garbed in one of his signature dandy prints. Seated at a table made for for him by an Amish carpenter during a trip to Lancaster, Pennsylvania, he divulges that his Wooster Street loft was not his first New York apartment. "Before this, I lived in a sailboat docked on City Island." With an impish grin, he adds, "I would row from City Island and take the bus to Sheridan Square where The Village Voice would distribute the day's apartment listings at 6 a.m. sharp."
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