On the last week of March, the owners of Secret Project Robot, a local DIY art and music space, stated their farewell after being in business for over a decade: “On April 31st, 2019, Secret Project Robot will be saying [goodbye] to our Broadway space and once again moving on to other art experiments and new awesome schemes and adventures, this will be just another leg of our 15 year journey, and we are, as always elated for the next phase of our comical missions into the absurd.”

The new business moving in, Wonderville, will be run by Death by Audio Arcade, an arcade game collective. In a month’s time, the noise-spattered floor will become something else, replaced by lines of video games in decorative arcade cabinets, operated by the new owners.

“I would hope people would see this as the same kind of space,” Mark Kleback said. Kleback is an adjunct professor at NYU’s Interactive Telecommunications Program and boasts an old school gamer’s beard. He pays the bills by building arcade cabinets for corporate clients and festivals: “People see what we do and they get really excited about getting arcade cabinets for their office or some event.”