ABC No Rio is a collectively-run non-profit arts organization on

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

's Lower East Side. It was founded in 1980 in a squat at 156 Rivington Street, following the eviction of the 1979-80 Real Estate Show. The centre featured an art gallery space, a zine library, a darkroom, a silkscreening studio, and public computer lab. In addition, it played host to a number of radical projects including weekly

hardcore punk Hardcore punk (also known as simply hardcore) is a punk rock music genre and subculture that originated in the late 1970s. It is generally faster, harder, and more aggressive than other forms of punk rock. Its roots can be traced to earlier p ...

matinees and the city Food Not Bombs collective. In July 2016, ABC No Rio vacated the Rivington Street building in advance of demolition and construction of a new facility on the same site for its programs, projects and operations, including the silkscreen studio, zine library, art exhibitions and music shows.

History

Founding

Beginning in the late 1960s, Manhattan's Lower East Side was facing massive

disinvestment Disinvestment refers to the use of a concerted economic boycott to pressure a government, industry, or company towards a change in policy, or in the case of governments, even regime change. The term was first used in the 1980s, most commonly in ...

by absentee landlords—by the late 1970s up to 80% of the area's housing stock was abandoned and in rem (seized by the city's government for non-payment of taxes). By the late 1970s and 1980s, a growing squatter movement and a small but visible “downtown” arts scene developed from within the burgeoning gentrification of the largely Puerto Rican community in the Lower East Side. ABC No Rio itself grew out of the 1979 '' The Real Estate Show'', organized by the artists' group Colab (Collaborative Projects), in which a large group of artists seeking to foster connections between these communities occupied an abandoned building at 123 Delancey Street and turned it into a gallery to show solidarity with working people in a critique of the city's land use policies—policies that in essence kept buildings empty until the area again attracted investment from developers—and a demonstration of what can be achieved through solidarity. The show was to explicitly "illuminate no legal issues" and it called for "no rights"; instead, it was "preemptive and insurrectionary." The show opened to the public on January 1, 1980; it was promptly shut down before the morning of January 2 by the New York City Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD). In the following negotiations with HPD, the organizers of The Real Estate show were granted the use of the building at 156 Rivington Street. That space became ABC No Rio. The name derives from the remaining letters of a mostly burnt-out neon sign that was in the front window of the building. It had read: "Abogado Con Notario," which means "lawyer and notary public" in Spanish. But all that remained were the letters "Ab C No rio". ABC No Rio was conceived of as an "art-making center," a community-oriented alternative to what its founders perceived as an overly hierarchical art world and gallery scene. It was to be "a place where you could do things that wouldn’t even cross your mind to do in a gallery."

Past legal disputes

In 1997, the city agreed to sell the building to ABC No Rio for $1 provided the organization could raise the money to renovate the building and bring it up to code, and that the squatters living in the upper floors of the building vacate to free the space for public use. After three years, the squatters, numbering around 10 and including a young family, left their apartments, which were converted to a zine library, a " Food Not Bombs" kitchen, a silk screening studio, a computer lab, and other artist spaces. Over the years the city changed the scope and price of renovation several times, until 2004 when it was agreed that renovation could be broken into three phases and that the property would be sold when the collective had the funds for phase one in place. On June 29, 2006, the city completed the proposed sale, selling 156 Rivington St. to ABC No Rio for $1, still including the provision that the organization must raise the rest of the money to renovate the building.

Development project

In 2006, having acquired the property the ABC No Rio collective began planning to build a new multi-use arts center with photo darkroom, screenprinting facility, small press library, computer center, expanded space for art, music, performance, educational and community activities, and meeting and office space for ABC No Rio and other organizations. ABC No Rio's new building was designed by architect Paul Castrucci. It will meet the rigorous passive House standard for energy efficiency. It will be significantly more efficient than the state energy code requires, making it a low-energy house. Castrucci commented in 2016 that it would become “one of the most energy-efficient buildings in the city.” In summer 2016, the final shows at the building took place and the collectives found other venues for their activities. The zine library moved to the Clemente Soto Vélez

community center Community centres, community centers, or community halls are public locations where members of a community tend to gather for group activities, social support, public information, and other purposes. They may sometimes be open for the whole c ...

and the punk gigs moved to Brooklyn.

Projects

Since 1980, ABC No Rio has hosted many projects. It runs as a collective of collectives. The individual projects enjoy a great deal of autonomy in their day-to-day affairs. Building-wide matters are addressed at building collective meetings. While the building itself was being rebuilt, the collectives moved to other locations and ABC No Rio collaborated with other groups such as the

Museum of Reclaimed Urban Space The Museum of Reclaimed Urban Space (MoRUS) is a not-for profit museum dedicated to archiving the history of community gardens, squatting, and grassroots environmental activism of the Lower East Side neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City. Lo ...

Punk and hardcore live music

Perhaps ABC No Rio's best-known project is the Punk/Hardcore Collective. Since December 1989, ABC No Rio has hosted weekly punk and hardcore matinees on Saturday afternoons. They go back to the initiative of Mike Bromberg, former singer of

NYHC New York hardcore (also known as NYHC) is both the hardcore punk music created in New York City and the subculture and lifestyle associated with that music. New York hardcore grew out of the hardcore scene established in Washington, D.C., by ban ...

band SFA, who suggested running hardcore shows to the building collective and organized the first shows. For most of the 1980s, the NYC punk/hardcore scene had been focused around the Sunday matinees at

CBGB CBGB was a New York City music club opened in 1973 by Hilly Kristal in Manhattan's East Village. The club was previously a biker bar and before that was a dive bar. The letters ''CBGB'' were for '' Country'', '' BlueGrass'', and '' Blues'', Kri ...

's. These shows devolved into weekly bloodbaths due to gang violence and, therefore, in November 1989, CBGB's stopped hosting them. The new shows at ABC No Rio were carefully set up to be devoid of the violence, homophobia, sexism, and machismo that had taken over the CBGB's matinees, and to this day follows a policy of booking only

independent Independent or Independents may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Artist groups * Independents (artist group), a group of modernist painters based in the New Hope, Pennsylvania, area of the United States during the early 1930s * Independe ...

(i.e., non-major label) bands that do not in any way promote sexism, racism and homophobia. ABC No Rio is also one of the few places in New York City to host regular punk/hardcore shows that are all-ages.

Zine library

ABC No Rio holds a large collection of zines formerly hosted by the now-defunct Lower East Side radical

bookstore Bookselling is the commercial trading of books which is the retail and distribution end of the publishing process. People who engage in bookselling are called booksellers, bookdealers, bookpeople, bookmen, or bookwomen. The founding of librar ...

and infoshop Blackout! Books. The collection spans over two decades, and features many zines with a radical political perspective, or a focus on punk and other DIY art forms. In 2014, an exhibition at the Center for Book Arts called ''Zines + the World of ABC No Rio'' drew on the collection.

References

External links

*
1981 ''BOMB Magazine'' interview with ABC No Rio by Shelley Leavitt
* {{Authority control Lower East Side Culture of New York City Legalized squats Squats in the United States Anarchism in New York (state) Anarchist organizations in the United States Non-profit organizations based in New York City Buildings and structures in Manhattan Social centres in the United States Art museums and galleries in Manhattan Performance art in New York City Infoshops Punk rock venues 1980 establishments in New York City All-ages DIY venues in the United States Housing in New York City