Keep your eye out on E-Bay for an antique mini Singer Featherweight sewing machine. It is among the many items stolen in Friday night’s break-in at the Greenwood building that houses the Center on Contemporary Art’s (CoCA) archives, as well as other artist studios and small businesses.

CoCA Archives Project Director Anna Hurwitz says thieves broke into the building at around 12:30 am, only 20 minutes after the last person from Versatile Arts (an aerialist studio) had left, and broke the lock boxes using a crow bar.

“They just kind of took their time and moved through the building and stole things from each tenant, pretty much.”

Other items that were stolen from the building's tenants include two Macs, some copper wire that was wrapped around an antique spool, and files from various businesses. From there, the list gets a little more random: the thieves also stole a vacuum, a light box, a computer mouse, and a roll of paper towels (they almost took a mannequin, too, Hurwitz says, but it seems like they left before they had a chance to grab it).

Luckily, CoCA’s 35-year archive of contemporary art exhibition postcards, posters, photographs, and videotaped performances were left untouched.

“They took the weirdest things,” Hurwitz says. Also stolen, she says, was a safe from one of the small businesses with blank checks and credit cards in it, which the thieves had started using by the following morning—apparently, three times already—at Brown Bear Carwash.

“So they knew what they were doing in terms of getting into the building with a crowbar and wearing gloves,” Hurwitz says. “But in terms of tracking them, it seems like they left a pretty clear trail.”

Hurwitz says there’s also some video footage and the police have fingerprints to go on, so she’s hopeful the suspects will eventually be caught, and adds that the police told her there’s been a rash of thefts in the neighborhood lately, an uptick most likely due to the spring weather—recent crimes include a lot of “smash and grabs” at car windows.

As for CoCA, they’ve upgraded their security system and could use some help defraying the costs. Anyone with any leads is urged to call the North Precinct Burglary Division at 206-684-0850.