[1] Originally based on Avenue B in Alphabet City, it moved to 145 Ludlow Street on Manhattan's Lower East Side; in 2004 it relocated to Tribeca until July 2008.

Miklos Legrady, Caterina Bartha, Patrick Daniels, Jamie Mereness, Mark Sonderskov, Bob Berger and Dan Green formed the original Board of Directors.

The Collective at Ludlow Street shared a place in New York's off-off-Broadway and performance art theater history, along with fellow performance spaces in the neighborhood such as Surf Reality, Todo Con Nada (Nada), Gargoyle Mechanique, The Present Company, House of Candles, and Pianos (Theater).

Collective:Unconscious moved to its Tribeca location in 2004,[12] and launched new initiatives with the theatrical group The Tank, theater-burlesque innovators Pinchbottom featuring Jonny Porkpie and Nasty Canasta, the annual Underground Zero festival, the New York International Fringe Festival,[13] Shifting Ambition Theater's No Alarms (Headfullofradio),[14] and many others.

Among the headliners were Karen Finley and Neal Medlyn,[15] Mike Daisey,[16] Annie Sprinkle ('Exposed: Experiments in Love, Sex, Death and Art'),[17] and East River Commedia.