How Brooklyn’s The Lot Radio has thrived as an independent station for 10 yearsIn 2015, five years after moving to New York, Belgian expat François Vaxelaire took a long walk through his neighbourhood in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. He was tired of freelancing as a photographer and videographer and anxiously contemplating his future when he noticed a “for lease” sign on a long-abandoned fenced-off lot. Immediately, his mind was racing with ideas.

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“Everything connected in my brain in half a second, like in movies, and I’m not a person like that at all. I was like, ‘Wait, I’m gonna do something here’. And two seconds later, ‘I’m gonna do radio’,” he reflects during a recent conversation at The Lot Radio, the beloved independent internet radio station he built on that triangular plot of land once home to a gas station.
“10 years ago, I had no idea what I was doing, but I felt in my gut it was important,” he adds.
Nine months after that spontaneous dream, in February 2016, Vaxelaire launched The Lot Radio from a converted shipping container he tricked out for the space, along with picnic tables for people to listen in person. Since the beginning, he’s remained dedicated to ensuring it remains self-sustaining and to offering a great experience for the DJs, who play for free.
The booth is decked out with the latest gear (including two Pioneer CDJ-3000s, CDJ-2000NX2s, and Technics SL-1200s plus Funktion-One monitors) with an adaptable setup. But, crucially, it’s designed to be a warm, welcoming community space. “New York is a tough city. I really wanted to create a little island of freedom for all the music lovers,” Vaxelaire shares.
Image: The Lot Radio
“The first year was insane,” he reflects, sharing his surprise at how many of his dream guests came through early on. A debut year filled with pinch-me moments is topped by one of his long-time favourites, Antal, the founder of Amsterdam’s Rush Hour Music, who ended up playing five hours because he loved the space. (He’s since returned several times, most recently in March.) That moment made Vaxelaire feel he was onto something good. Most of their dream DJs have already played the decks, yet he would love to have Theo Parrish and Maurice Fulton one day.
Vaxelaire cites the physical space as a core part of The Lot’s ongoing success, one that connects the online world with the tangible one, where DJs can meet their heroes, future collaborators and fans. “The strength and magic of Lot Radio is in the triangle,” he asserts. “In a city where everything is expensive…it’s an actual third space in NYC. We feel so lucky and attached to the triangle.”
Impressively, the non-profit radio station is fully sustained by sales from the small café window at one end of the shipping container. Since the public area is outdoors, it makes most of its money during the warmer months (although New York regularly faces spring and summer rain). “It’s busy until the end of October. Without that high season, we die, because in the winter we lose so much money. Basically, we make enough money in the summer to survive the winter. And every year, maybe we’re able to buy a new CDJ,” Vaxelaire explains. He has one full-time and one part-time staff member, along with six baristas to help the business run smoothly. (The baristas are also passionate about music—Sasha Cwalino, who DJs as deep creep, started as a barista and is now on staff and a radio regular.)
Kiosk café at The Lot Radio. Image: The Lot Radio
“Since day one, the kiosk [café] has been saving us. We had no idea if it would work. Online streaming projects will always hit the same issue at some point where they [run out of] money; it’s impossible to sustain [without sponsors],” Vaxelaire posits.
“It’s important for us to be critical about who we collaborate with, so the fact that we are completely independent economically is really freeing… When we do a collaboration it means we really believe in it.”
Most of the collabs don’t make The Lot money, although some offer paid DJ gigs. They include Lot DJ lineups at the Museum of Modern Art, Making Time fest in Philadelphia, HORST Festival in Belgium with Brussels’ Kiosk Radio (launched in 2017 by his friend), and even at the New York Public Library’s Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, home to an impressive record collection.
“My day-to-day isn’t sexy at all, but I feel extremely lucky. Everyone is happy to come and be here, that’s rare [in a workplace],” Vaxelaire says. His passion for the project is evident the moment he begins speaking about it. It’s made him a beloved behind-the-scenes figure on the scene, evidenced by the fact that so many DJs are excited to play pro bono on The Lot.
Love Injection’s magazine stand. Image: The Lot Radio
The Lot currently boasts 200 local resident DJs across the genre spectrum (including ambient, indie, punk and rap) on its schedule who host monthly or weekly shows. Brooklyn underground house power couple Barbie Bertisch and Paul Raffaele, who DJ as Love Injection, have the longest-running show on The Lot. It’s a second home to them, one where Bertisch celebrated her thirtieth birthday and their baby shower. (They offer free copies of their music zine, also named Love Injection, at a custom stand on The Lot.)
“It’s been such a constant for us through so much change. I’ve had jobs come and go, the pandemic, babies. When we take a weekend off, it feels weird,” Raffaele reflects. “It feels untethered [when we skip],” Bertisch adds. “It’s the anchor to our week.”
The multi-hyphenate duo launched their project shortly before The Lot, so they appreciate the space it’s given them to experiment and grow, without deference to streaming or audience numbers. “We’ve grown symbiotically. I don’t know what Love Injection would be without The Lot,” Raffaele says.

“[The Lot] are actual angels; Francois, Karl [Scholz] of Karlala Soundsystem [whose custom pink speakers pump up outdoor fêtes around the city, including the Lot’s Juneteenth block party]. These are people that are dedicating the middle of their lives to art and culture and helping people without any major recognition,” Raffaele commends.
They assert that part of its success is that people want to support it; for example, Raffaele often lends his graphic design skills. “People want to give to The Lot. There are jobs you do for money and jobs you want to do. It’s the latter,” Bertisch says.
While The Lot is an important hub for NYC DJs and electronic music fans, it’s important to Vaxelaire to represent the rich eclecticism of the city’s ever-evolving sound on their airwaves. During his first year, he received feedback that he wasn’t fully encompassing New York music, so he’s aimed to do so ever since. “It became bigger than us; it was part of NYC, so we had the responsibility to represent NYC,” the Belgian creative says.
Image: The Lot Radio
In fact, the station reflects the sonic shifts of the underground Brooklyn scenes, welcoming a new generation of NYC Gen Z DJs—many who are influenced by Jersey club and footwork—and ravers that came of age during the pandemic, while still making space for the many local legends and other great DJs here.
“It has lived through these generational intervals, which are getting shorter now because culture is moving so fast,” Raffaele says. “There are very different eras of The Lot, which will continue; it’ll keep putting a mirror up to what’s going on in the Brooklyn underground.”
Bertisch echoes the many Lot fans by asserting that losing it would have a “monumental” impact on the local scene. “It’s the town square for New York’s underground,” she explains. “The Lot has become the place where people who would otherwise never cross paths end up rubbing against each other, because the New York underground is so many things at once…Where else would we gather?”
This is why the city closing The Lot in October 2024 for eight months was such a disappointment. The Department of Health shut them down after they applied to renovate in order to move from a temporary structure permit to permanent building status. Vaxelaire continued radio operations, but with the café shuttered into the summer, they had no money coming in and a slim window of survival.

Vaxeliare names the Office of Nightlife, who acted as a helpful interlocutor between The Lot and the city departments of health and buildings, as essential to their reopening and, consequently, their survival. (Former Mayor Bill de Blasio launched the department, along with hiring the city’s first “nightlife mayor” in 2018. The Lot recently hosted current nightlife mayor Jeffrey Garcia for an hour-long interview.)
This isn’t the first time they’ve had to close and quickly adapt. At the start of the lockdown, they switched to having DJs stream from home, thanks to former core team member Pauline Lament, who helped them connect to their system virtually. The Lot was one of the first bars to be able to reopen, thanks to their fully outdoor seating, becoming a safe, much-needed gathering space for New Yorkers after months of quarantining in small apartments. Shortly before the pandemic struck, The Lot team visited sunny Los Angeles to look into launching an outpost there. They discovered that attaining a liquor license was even more complicated than in NYC, so they dropped the idea.
Vaxelaire’s next dream for The Lot in the coming years is to secure a ten- to 15-year lease. He’s almost done with the renovations and is currently working with a local architecture studio to build a new space using two stacked shipping containers. “I want The Lot Radio to be part of New York City as a whole, to be the independent online radio of New York City.”
He appreciates the fresh talent and sounds the young people involved with The Lot bring in, and while he’ll always stay involved and help his project thrive, he wants to pass the leadership torch to someone younger in the near future.
“I don’t want to sound cheesy, but I give my whole heart to this project. I really try to have this little island of freedom, creativity and a sacred place for music in the heart of New York. That it’s been ten years is insane.”
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