In anticipation of our SUSTAINnyc sustainability convening, here is some information on inefficient residential and commercial buildings and what can be done to improve efficiency.

According to a UNEP study titled “Toward a Green Economy,” homes and businesses are responsible for 40 percent of climate change causing carbon pollution…

A typical residential or commercial building loses about 42 percent of energy through the building envelope (doors, roofs, attics, walls, floors and foundations). This is particularly true in the winter when heat loss through windows can account for as much as one quarter a home’s utility bill.

- “Growth of Energy Efficient Buildings,” The Energy Collective

Learn more about how the environmental and economic benefits driving efficiency and the growth of energy efficient buildings.

The Living Theatre

The last night for The Living Theatre at 21 Clinton Street is this Wednesday 2/27/13 and will be packed with performances and festivities!

7PM – John Clancy (founder of The Present Company that created the NY International Fringe Festival & executive director of The League of Independent Theaters) reads his one man show.

9PM – Penny Arcade aka Susana Ventura is a performance artist , writer, poet and cultural critic. Tickets HERE.

11PM – Screening of Love and Politics.

12AM – Special encore performance of Here We Are.

1:30AM - Late night party with special guests to be announced.

FABWORKS Storefront

FAB is excited to announce our new partnership with Made in the Lower East Side (miLES) and the opening of FABWORKS on April 1, 2013 for a three-month period.

FABWORKS is conveniently located at 75 E 4th Street, the former FAB Cafe space. We will be working with miLES to host an array of programs in our storefront, including co-working on weekdays, classes and events on weeknights, and pop-up shops on the weekend.

Apply to become a miLES co-worker, or join as a miLES member to host classes, events, or pop-up shops!

Do find yourself aching for another zombie movie marathon? Are you a fan of anthropology? Do you have an extreme craving/love affair with that tree-like vegetable known as broccoli? If you answered yes to any of these questions then you HAVE to go see The Vindlevoss Family Circus, recently extended to Saturday, March 9^th at 8:45pm as part of the 7th Annual FRIGID New York festival’s Hangovers.

If you answered no, you should go see it anyway because you’ll probably love it nonetheless.

I walked into the small, dark space at UNDER St. Marks, wondering what lay in store. Et voila! The Vindlevoss Family Circus Spectacular began in all its cast-of-two glory, and I was blown away (and almost eaten).

The story goes like this: a female, German version of Nigel Thornberry (from that famed cartoon “The Wild Thornberrys”) named Penelope Vindlevoss comes across an abandoned zombie named Edward while on an anthropological trip in Africa. What ensues is a hilarious mix of clowning, pantomime, puppetry, and delicious absurdity.

Carrie Brown and Karim Muasher are Co-Artistic Directors of the theatre company Animal Engine and are amazing as the unconventional pair. Brown dons a handlebar mustache with the panache of an old-school Safari-going English imperialist, while Muasher is a combination of frightful and adorable as the broccoli-loving zombie. My favorite scene is when Edward spends at least half a minute singing an ode to the veggie. Adorable!

The performance is a hilarious display of what can be achieved in a small space with a small cast, a talented director, and brilliant story. Go see the Vindlevoss Family Circus Spectacular, you will not be disappointed!

Written by Erica Cheung

What does sustainability mean to you?” was one of the main questions raised at FABnyc’s Convening for Understanding Urban Sustainability: One Block At A Time on Saturday, February 23 at Cooper Union. Hosted by Fourth Arts Block (FAB) collaboration with the Cooper Union Institute for Sustainable Design, the Convening brought together artists, activists, architects, city officials and members of the community to discuss the ways in which sustainable initiatives can be implemented in the East 4^th Street Cultural District and beyond.

As attendees arrived, they were encouraged to interact with colorful info graphic survey posters—made by FAB’s own Phoebe Stern—on which they marked their gender, occupation, and where they live (among other questions) with stickers. Other walls were covered with posters made by Cooper Union’s Martha Giannakopoulou, presenting the block from different vantage points: block profiles, building profiles, and unit profiles. Infrared scans documented the ways in which each building on the block retains and loses energy, while drawings and photos illustrated the very diverse structures and people that make up our block.

These posters ultimately depicted the highly complex relationships that occur between the street, people, and the buildings on East 4^th Street, relationships that should enhance the way that sustainability is discussed in terms of this block (and most blocks in NYC).

Betsy Imershein, Director of SUSTAIN, opened the convening with a compelling discussion about the difficult task of changing people’s relationships to their trash and environment. “According to research,” Imershein said, “there exists an enormous gap between what people report is important to them in terms of sustainable behaviors, practices and purchases and what they actually do—with 80% identifying their importance and only 50% actually taking action.”

Armed with markers, sticky notes, and posters with a plan of the block, attendees were given the task of discussing this issue amongst others, lead by four fearless group leaders: Giannakopoulou, who led a table on “Streetscape & Public Engagement”; CUISD Professor Lydia Kallipoliti, who led a table on “Reimagining the Urban Form & Sustainable Block Ecology”;  CUISD Professor Kevin Bone, who led a table on “Life of the Block: Building Envelop & Retrofitting the Built Environment”; and FAB Executive Director Tamara Greendfield, who led a table on “Actions, Learning & Behavior Change for Culturals & Businesses.” These breakout groups bounced around questions, problems, and potential solutions when dealing with the issue of engaging and effective initiatives that promote sustainability.

The groups brainstormed for one hour before breaking for lunch. Although the day was halfway done, there was still much work to do, and all were pleasantly surprised by the two guests that dropped by during lunch appeared. First came Manhattan Borough President, Scott Stringer, who flashed his distinctive smile, and exclaimed that East 4th Street would soon be “the most sustainable block in Manhattan!” Next New York City Councilwoman Rosie Mendez, stopped by to express her support for FAB and SUSTAIN, closing off the day’s speeches on a distinguished note.

Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer & Tamara Greenfield

As the convening slowly came to a close, the groups reunited to share their findings and present their posters. Although many questions were raised and creative ideas were proposed, there were several notable themes that were raised throughout the convening:

-What are people’s ethics towards their trash and relationship to the environment?

-What is the role of the community in changing these ethics?

-Can the government be relied upon to make change happen quickly and effectively?

-What is the role of the arts in sustainability initiatives?

-How can different groups (architects, activists, government officials, artists) work together to effectively create change?

-Can the ideas and initiatives for East 4^th Street be implemented in other areas of NYC and the country?

At the end of the day, attendees were buzzing with ideas and eager to continue discussing these issues outside of the convening. Although much was accomplished that day, ultimately there was a feeling of “what’s next” that lingered as attendees filtered out of Cooper Union. What is the next step to create actual change? Activists encouraged immediate action, while architects talked about design plans and others discussed grants and city reform.

What I learned from the convening is that sustainability is a BIG issue that needs to be discussed at every level: from making recycling easier, to building “lighter” buildings. FAB has and will keep the conversation going, and it is important that others do as well. It is amazing to see how much work went into talking about sustainability on ONE block! Imagine all the work that needs to be done when taking on a whole city and (eventually) country. So let’s get working!

What are your thoughts on sustainability? Let us know at info@fabnyc.org.

American Realism is something I know nothing about. Well…that’s not true. I happen to be an American. And thus far, as much as I can tell via pinches and self-slaps, I am real too.

Still, I am not as familiar with the definition provided by the art history experts of our day (as I never took art history, nor a theater class, but that’s beside the point), but, because I still have an opinion, and I think it’s valid, here we go.

Last night I went to a play – Set in the Living Room of a Small Town American Play – inspired by and crafted as an abstract response to American Realism. An ambitious work by collaborative masterminds director John Kurzynowski and resident playwright Jacklyn Bakhaus of Theater Reconstruction Ensemble, Living Room is indeed a real play. John and Jacklyn are real people, who hail from Jersey and NYU, and are making a real wave in Downtown Theater.

I attended the show with my real friend who really knew the cast and crew and we sat in the front row (which was really the second row). We watched (really watched), and really laughed, and really had globs of snot and mascara all over our faces and hands because we cried. Really cried – and did not have the insight to bring tissue.

The general storyline was simple in that (apparently) “American Realist” way. The father is a drunk and owns a failing business, therefore the mother is an anxious, self-medicated drunk, who also escapes via the kitchen. The daughter is an ignored teen who finds her reality not real enough – and then there’s the older brother, a victim of a tragedy, who comes home from college in an attempt to heal himself.

However, the rest was nothing near simple at all. As the title suggests, this was a play within a play, a universe within a universe, where time portals and psychic bridges littered the stage. True to its mission, this was a contemporary play commenting and evolving out of a 19^th century idea, where people just wanted to get real. Much in the fashion of our (often referenced) East 4^th Street favorites the New York Neo Futurists, actors began on stage as people who are actors, reading their newest play for the first time. Transitions in the script translate to the actors, who melt into their characters, slowly revealing themselves to the audience as they jump between worlds, indecipherably existing between reflections of time, transparency, and identity.

Aside from the impeccable stage direction, and graceful performances from the entire cast, the beauty of Living Room was purely how real it was. As someone who is more familiar with American Realness than Realism, this production is that transformation of one into the other. Where reflections of an era, an environment, evolve to representations of the self, an authentic self. A true testament to the fact that without being real in our own living room, it’s hard to have fun, and then you can’t be a person who laughs, snots and cries in single sitting.

Set in the Living Room of a Small American Play runs through Saturday, March 9 at Walkerspace (SoHo Rep). Find tickets and more at Theater Reconstruction Ensemble.

- Written by Erica R., Program Assistant at FABnyc

Cities In Crisis: Ecological Transformations
Mondays
February 11 – March 18, 6:30-8pm
Great Hall of the Cooper Union, Free & Open to the Public

The Cooper Union is holding a series of lectures presenting “an integrated view of cities from an ecological perspective” featuring Dr. Steward Pickett, past President of the Ecological Society of America and a plant ecologist with the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies.

The next lecture on Mar. 11 is titled “Ecology for Urban Design” and will be looking at the ways that “the ethics of sustainability shape ecological application in cities.”  This lecture series is a great way to continue the conversation SUSTAINnyc presented last week with the Cooper Union Institute for Sustainable Design at the Convening for Understanding Urban Sustainability: One Block At A Time and there’s only two left, so get moving!

This is the story of The White Piece:

In 2004, I was making a new work when one of my dancers, Daudet, from the Centre for Care for Survivors of Torture, who has appealed for asylum in Ireland, received a Deportation Order from the Irish Justice Department. I watched helplessly as all his support systems abandoned him and his removal from the state and return to his country of birth and almost certain death, awaited him. I was made horribly aware of the difficulties of the asylum process. I also realized that unless I did something, Daudet was dead. I contacted a legal acquaintance and I went to the Irish high court, taking an injunction against the minister for Justice, preventing Daudet’s Deportation. It was a happy ending but a horrific journey. I was totally out of my depth.

Other dancers came to me with their problems, asylum problems, racism issues, fear of police, of immigration officials. I had to read files about torture, imprisonment, body scars, medical reports, psychiatric evaluations, which made me shudder and cry and be angry and want to vomit but which were not enough to move an archaic and unrelenting asylum process to address urgent, terrifying personal situations.

I was in the studio with two of my regular dancers: Cheryl Therrien, from Merce Cunningham and Philip Connaughton, developing dance phrases, then running to courtrooms and legal offices. I felt soiled by the horrible facts I was dealing in and the loss of privacy of the people I was helping. The choreographic tasks became a mechanism for one body covering another, hiding another, protecting.

My one thought, when approaching rehearsal was wiping out, dissolving, hiding. Since I began teaching dance at the Centre for Care for Survivors of Torture, I had learned so much and been given so much love and joy. This feeling of love helped us all to rise above the frightening reality and fears of Deportation. In my workshops we began to improvise about Love. Also, think about ‘Me’, ‘Identity’ for people without passports, citizenship, civic rights. What was happening became an essential survival tool for all the participants. We also had to show this in our performance. I began fusing the different dance backgrounds, physical backgrounds of the cast. We call this work The White Piece as an act of purification, of healing. In my research, we learned a white piece of cloth has the power to “heal bodies, placate spirits and metaphorically transcend the world of humans” in both Cuban culture and  African Yoruban culture’. It seemed futile and escapist and unreal, taking people in fear for their lives, grieving their lost lives, families, and rehearsing a dance piece while they were going through the terror that is the asylum process in the west. Amazingly we have found that the dance heals and has done more than therapy.  This is our reflection to our lives.

Please watch a bit of the piece:

Best wishes,

John Scott

The White Piece runs 3/21-24 @ La MaMa E.T.C.

Join The Ukrainian Museum this weekend in celebrating independent film in the post-Soviet region.

“Kinofest NYC, featuring independent film from Ukraine and the broader post-Soviet region for the 4th year in a row, is finally here! This year’s festival includes ten screening sessions, more than 30 films ‒ documentary and narrative, shorts and feature length ‒ by filmmakers from Ukraine, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Estonia, Russia, Slovenia, Tajikistan, the United Kingdom, and the United States.”

Watch the event trailer below:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Kinofest NYC will be screening films until Sunday, April 7th. 

Get your tickets here.

For this month’s M.O.M. we’re showcasing Wild Project, a production company and venue for contemporary theatre, film and visual arts.

We hope to bring the community together by providing inspiring and entertaining art from the emerging artists, exploring green technologies, and finding innovative ways to help our world and each other.

Wild Project 

Their current show is Sleeping Rough produced by Page 73 and written by Kara Manning.

“In Kara Manning’s SLEEPING ROUGH, an American woman, unable to forgive her country for a grave offense, ignores the entreaties of her daughter and ex-husband and flees to London to graffiti her anguish across the city of her youth.”

Showtimes: April 3-27, Weekdays @8pm, Saturdays @3pm & 8pm (Except 4/6)

Tickets: $25

Their May show is Alondra Was Here, produced by humRumbleROAR and written by Chisa Hutchinson.

“Sisters Alondra and Anise have had enough. People in their town are disappearing; young women are being brutalized and the perpetrators are rewarded with political power. So the sisters decide they’re going to do something about it–something dangerous and rebellious and probably very stupid, but something nonetheless.”

Showtimes: May 4-18, Tues – Thus @7om, Fri @8pm, Sat @ 2pm & 8pm, Sun @2pm

Tickets: $18

Finally, we’re happy to announce Wild Project’s summer festival season featuring Clubbed Thumb’s SummerWorks, All Out Arts Fresh Fruit Festival, and the Between the Seas festival of Mediterranean performing arts.

More info to come.

Fore more information on Wild Project visit their site here.

Wild Project is located at:

195 East 3rd Street
New York, NY 10009
p. 212.228.1195

The Lower East Side is a neighborhood enshrined in the minds of many who dream of coming to New York City. It holds in its blocks and buildings, its streets and parks a sort of mysticism, akin to that of the Latin Quarter in Paris or any other place in the world that you can think of that exudes nostalgia­–you can’t help but think: “Yeah, that’s New York.”

Thanks to movies like The Godfather, Gangs of New York, Rent and When Harry Met Sally, the Lower East is immortalized in film. It’s only after actually visiting the Lower East Side that the realization hits you: these places actually exist, people actually live here, the history of New York is still present and its importance goes far beyond the realm of cinema or nostalgia.

(From left) Photo of Canal Street from 1899 by Library of Congress, Photo of Cooper Square by Whitney Browne for FAB 

Fourth Arts Block is celebrating the history of the Lower East Side in preparation for 2014’s Lower East Side History Month with this three-part series. We’re highlighting some of our members—theatres, community organizing committees to name a few—as a way to not only showcase their amazing work, but also to situate these groups in the history of a changing community that is historically vital to the identity of New York City, but also evolving, living and breathing.

As we look to the future of the Lower East Side, we see the community becoming even more engaged in issues of cultural preservation, sustainability, climate change, housing affordability and community organizing. These issues have been present in the Lower East Side for decades, have shaped its identity and community and continue to be the lifeblood of this culturally passionate neighborhood. Even though this series is calling on the Lower East Side’s history, it does so in a attempt to illustrate the work that is being done now, today, that draws on the past and will also color the future.

 ~~~~

Enter Metropolitan Playhouse and its Producing Artistic Director Alex Roe. This company on 220 East 4th Street has been presenting American and American-themed plays since 1997 and has been written about several times in the New York Times (if that’s any indication of how good it is, yeah it’s that good). On the phone, Roe and I chat about the Playhouse’s latest series of productions (part of their 3^rd Annual East Village Theater Festival) “East Side Stories.”

Photo by Metropolitan Playhouse

“I have a fascination with the exciting, always changing history of this particular part of the city,” Roe says. “The cultural movements, art movements, immigrant movements that took place here are reflected in a particular quality of urban life in the Lower East Side.”

It is this quality of urban life that the Metropolitan Playhouse showcases in “East Side Stories,” a four-part series that includes two new productions of one-act plays and two productions of monologues, based on interviews with people who live in the Lower East Side.

“The one-act plays try to give a feel for the history and changing culture of the neighborhood,” Roe explains of the new works, titled “Pioneers” and “Game Changers.” These oral histories tell the fictional stories of real and made-up people—Madison Grant, the founder of the Bronx Zoo, talks politics with a zoo nurse while a journalist muses over Occupy Wall Street.

The other half of “East Side Stories” is a collection of nonfiction monologues presented in the actual words of the interviewees. Roe describes “Visionaries” and “Healers” as “theatrical snapshots of the people who live and work and are prominent in the neighborhood now, well-known to a certain block but by no means famous.”

Photo by Metropolitan Playhouse

In a previous interview with FAB, Roe describes meeting a man on the street in the Lower East Side and striking up a conversation with him. Roe became enthralled in the man’s story and turned it into a monologue. This is the same process by which Metropolitan Playhouse actors have developed this year’s “East Side Stories”. They are a “unique profile of life, history and the governing ethos of the neighborhood.”

They give a voice to the faces that we may see everyday as we walk down a particular block on our way to work or back home. “East Side Stories” holds the community accountable for remembering that the histories of residents are important in not only commemorating the past, but also in trying to talk about the challenges that the neighborhood currently faces (housing crises, storm surge, rapid economic changes, the arrival of the 2^nd Avenue subway) that may affect the Lower East Side’s future.

“This project is one of the more interesting things we do,” Roe explains, emphatically describing what its like to witness an interviewee see his or her story being played out on stage. “It’s incredibly inspiring.”

“East Side Stories” opens with a reception on April 15^th at Metropolitan Playhouse, 220 East Fourth Street, and continues through May 5^th.

Written by Erica Cheung

When Sandy hit New York, the lights went off leaving over 18,000 New Yorkers in the darkness for five days. This disruption of power extended beyond the economic or productive sphere; it permeated every aspect of urban life and created a fundamental rupture with the perception of urban space.

-Grid Off/Lights On 

Those of us who live and work in the Lower East Side remember the darkness and lack of electricity that came with Hurricane Sandy. Once 5pm rolled around, most people were already in their houses, trying to cuddle together for warmth or warming up some food on their gas stoves (if they had gas stoves).

Grid Off/Lights On is a collaborative project (and blog) by the Cooper Union Institute for Sustainable Design that brings together architects, designers, activists, students and members of the LES community as a think tank to engage with the topic of climate change, energy, and urban space. Grid Off/Lights On is an environmental technology workshop aiming to “address questions of urban illumination by developing experimental lighting structures that generate their energy autonomously detached from the urban grid of power supply.” An experimental non-electrical off-grid lighting prototype will be installed in the East 4th Street Cultural District  as a product of the project.

Grid Off; Lights On is an officially exhibited project for the Ideas City Festival of the New Museum and is part of SUSTAIN, a collaborative research project of CUISD and FABnyc.

Walking on the street today, I saw a man with a hat cleaning the sidewalk, a young woman smiled at me on her way to wherever she was going, and an elderly woman walked out of her building, searching her purse for her “damned” keys. Normally I’d walk by, not a care in my world about who these people are, where they come from, what they do. After watching director Yvonne Conybeare’s “East Side Stories: Visionaries” at the Metropolitan Playhouse, that all changed.

Nine years ago, Metropolitan began a series of plays called “East Side Stories” in which they asked actors to meet with local residents in the Lower East Side and return with their stories in tow. Like old photographs come to life, these actors capture what artistic director Alex Roe calls “theatrical snapshots” of the diverse people that make up this unique neighborhood. “Visionaries” is one of three monologue productions, a part of this year’s “East Side Stories,” described by Roe as one of his favorite series’ of the year.

Michael Durkin and Mark August in last year’s East Side Stories

The performance begins with Shirley Campbell, a former Black Panther and American Tennis Association player who has lived on the block for over 30 years and frequents our FABnyc offices often. Stephen Conrad Moore is the actor who steps out of the black curtain dressed in an outfit Campbell would wear: a yellow hat, grey pants, and a simple jacket. Of course, his hands are covered in sparkling rings, just as hers usually are.

In fact, the sparkle of Moore’s rings catch the glint off another pair of hands in the audience. In the darkness sits a woman, decked out in velvet and sequins, staring wide-eyed at the man who is playing her on stage.

In an interview I had with Roe last week, he describes seeing people react to their own stories and calls it one of the most inspiring things about this kind of work. While I sat watching Moore perform with such spectacular mimicry (his voice was Campbell’s, his movements were Campbell’s) I couldn’t help but stare at the real Campbell, watching her as amazement shone from her dewy eyes.

“I get my dreams mixed up with my reality,” Moore says as he sits down on a chair in what looks to be the living room of an apartment. The actor expresses the fact that Campbell has dementia in the most delicate and beautiful way, combining a rant-like stream of consciousness with the most amazing one-liners: “My dog died, it’s something that I haven’t quite dealt with yet. He was a handsome dude.”

Some of the most spectacular parts of the monologue come from Campbell’s experience as a member of the Black Panther Party in Paris, going out to dinner with the actor Marlon Brando, and her involvement with the Nation of Islam. Moore eloquently describes Campbell’s feelings towards Malcolm X and her love of tennis: “Tennis is the philosophy of winning. If you can’t take it, you ain’t got it.”

Actress Emily Grosland and Michael Schupbach of The Puppet Kitchen

Next up is the actress Emily Grosland as Michael Schupbach, co-founder of The Puppet Kitchen in the Lower East Side. The stage quickly changes from the interior of Campbell’s living room, to the colorful site of Schupbach’s workplace. Grosland sits at a desk, playing with some fabric, wings on her multicolored sneakers (or “Shwings” as Schupbach calls them) and a bright red apron stained with paints used to make puppets.

“This is The Puppet Kitchen,” Grosland exclaims, lifting her arms high up, hands spread out wide—it’s the kind of gesture you’d expect from someone who went to Clown College, as Schupbach did. Grosland comes off as a little overly animated, but it’s endearing. This probably has something to do with Schupbach’s philosophy: “There’s no penalty for being too loud, as long as it’s done in a charming way.” Excited whoops emanate from the side of the theatre, indicating that the puppeteer is in the theater.

Sheila Head closes off the performance with her depiction of musician, singer, and swing dancer Dawn Hampton. The setting is a Swing Dance Event Panel Discussion, and Hampton is dressed to the T in a sequined ensemble and a black turban hat. Hampton’s story seems out of a black and white movie, growing up in the carnival, learning how to play brass instruments as a child, saying things like “but that was show business” and “you were paid by the mafia.”

Hampton was the only interviewee of the three who was not present that evening, but Head’s performance depicts her as elegant, theatrical, and from another era. Head’s eyes gleam when she speaks of swing, and you truly understand her disdain for Jazz music as she describes the Miles Davis performance she attended many years ago, which she simply describes as: “He will never do that to me again.”

“East Side Stories: Visionaries” is an inspiring performance that every Lower East Sider should see. The people who live here, who make up the history and present of this neighborhood, are absolutely incredible. That is why now, when I walk down the street on my way to class or work, I pay attention to the people around me, knowing that every one of them holds a priceless story that deserves to be told.

“East Side Stories” will be on at the Metropolitan Playhouse until May 5. 

- Written by Erica Cheung

Photo by Marlis Momber (Source: The Local)

If you ever find yourself living in New York City (or any of its outliers) you will come across one word perhaps just as often as you’ll hear the words “bagel” and “hipster.” The word is “gentrification.”

The notion of the changing landscape of a city is one that most people think they understand—people come and go and, sometimes, so do buildings. However, this change is not so simple. While it is true that no city stays stagnant, people are not disposable. Sometimes the “city” wants to change faster and more drastically than it can.

Areas in New York City such as Brooklyn, Harlem, and the Lower East Side have all experienced the “chic-ing” up that is associated with gentrification. This is most evident in the East Village when you think a little closely about the modern apartment buildings that are scattered throughout the neighborhood, nestled in between what would have been tenements during the turn of the century. The fact is, with “chic-ing” up comes higher rent prices (another thing you’ll hear as often as talk about pizza), which means that only certain people can live in the certain neighborhoods, and people who live in rent-stabilized apartments are suddenly placed in very economically unstable environments.

This is where Cooper Square Committee comes in. Located at 61 East 4^th Street, CSC is a housing and preservation committee that provides social housing services to residents of the Lower East Side for free. As one of FAB’s members, we work closely on many projects, including projects involving sustainability and the preservation of the cultural institutions on our block that they worked to protect over a decade ago.

I sat down with Executive Director Steve Herrick to talk about Cooper Square Committee, the work that they do, and the legacy of community organizing so important to the Lower East Side in which they follow.

When was CSC founded and why? 

The Cooper Square Committee started back in 1959 in response to a plan by Robert Moses who was the big urban planner in NYC at the time. Moses came up with a plan to demolish the area from 9^th Street down to Delancy Street, east of the Bowery to 2^nd Avenue, about 12 city blocks.  It would have displaced several thousand residents and destroyed several hundred buildings.

Our organization formed in response to that Moses Plan. Over the next couple years, the members held over 100 planning meetings and created an alternative plan to the city’s that was adopted as the official plan of the neighborhood in 1970. The plan minimized demolition of buildings, required that city developers build on vacant lots and move anybody who was going to be displaced into the new buildings.

By the mid 1970s, the city started taking certain sites with Eminent Domain, including some of the tenement buildings here on 3^rd & 4^th Streets. We realized that when the city would take ownership of these buildings, they’d do a really lousy job with maintenance, so repairs weren’t being dealt with. One of the buildings on 71 East 4^th Street even had a fire. We were also dealing with drugs in the neighborhood, so our organization’s focus was on getting the city to make repairs, keep the buildings up to code, and to contend with some of the decline that the neighborhood was experiencing.

G.O.L.E.S.

During this time, New York City was suffering from the flight of the middle class. There was abandonment going on further east on Avenues A & B. There was also arson. One of the organizations that formed as a response to these issues in the late 1970s was Good Old Lower East Side (G.O.L.E.S.). They came out of Cooper Square Committee.

In mid 1980s, we got the city under Mayor David Dinkins to agree to a plan that we developed to transfer ownership of city-owned buildings to residents as low-income co-ops. We wanted to emphasize preserving the existing housing stock and felt that there shouldn’t be any real demolition unless it was absolutely necessary. We formed the Cooper Square Mutual Housing Association a year after Mayor Dinkins signed the agreement in 1990.

I joined Cooper Square Committee as director in 1998.

In the year 2000, I reached out to the cultural groups on this block. I knew that they had talked to consultants about doing planning for a vacant plot. The consultants had one chapter that dealt with the cultural buildings and recommended that those buildings be preserved for cultural use. At the time Mayor Giuliani had been selling off a lot of city-owned buildings to asset sales (to the highest bidder), so I was concerned that these buildings could be at risk. So in the summer of 2000 I asked all the cultural groups to come together and started the planning process. It was great. I worked with several cultural leaders including Ryan Gilliam from Downtown Art. In the fall, we met with the Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD) and with the help of former city councilwoman Margarita Lopez, helped create what is now the East 4th Street Cultural District [which was the foundational beginning for our very own Fourth Arts Block].

What are some of CSC’s concerns today and for the future? 

Our focus over the past decade has been working more with tenant associations, making tenant coalitions from multiple buildings with the same landlord who are experiencing the same things: destructive renovations, buy-out offers, harassment, problems like that. That’s been a big part of our work.

We’ve also developed some housing on 2^nd Street and 2^nd Avenue, apartments for people with psychiatric disabilities. We’re currently developing housing for homeless gay and lesbian youth on 13^th Street in partnership with the Ali Forney Center. We expect to start renovation at the end of this year on that project.

In collaboration with FAB, we’ve gotten involved with the Lower East Side greening initiative, and we have been working with Mutual Housing Association buildings and low-income co-ops to help them to apply to get funding for weatherization of their buildings. We want to be part of an effort to reduce carbon emissions and have a greener, healthier city. Getting low income co-ops to commit the resources to put in more energy-efficient boilers, windows, insulated pipes and all that, helps the buildings become more efficient, reducing their operating costs which is important given that these house low-income tenants.

In terms of the future, I think there’s going to continue being development pressures and displacement pressures. Fortunately, the rezoning of Lower East Side that happened in 2008 set height limits for over 114 blocks east of the Bowery. Unfortunately, the east side of the Bowery is not protected right now, and as a result we continue to see these really out of scale buildings going up. But I don’t think we’re going to be seeing really out of scale developing happening in much of the LES.

(Source: MASNYC)

However, one of the great things that happened as of last year is the Landmarks Preservation Commission created the historic district, largely through the efforts lead by the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation, that covers over 300 buildings between 3^rd st and St. Marks Place. I think they’re hoping to do another historic district somewhere in the LES. So tools like that I think really help to preserve the unique historic character of the community, but preserving the affordability is still a really big struggle. The biggest tool we have to battle that is the rent-stabilization law, which has to always come up for renewal about every 4 to 6 years. It’s coming up again in 2016 and I’m sure the landlord lobby is going to try to weaken it again. They’ve already weakened it a lot so that when an apartment becomes vacant, owners often just do some renovations as a formula where they can raise the rent 1/40^th of the cost per month [. . .] We’ve seen that just happen all over the place.

To some extent that may be the future of where pockets of the neighborhood are going, and I don’t know how you fight something like that because that’s just the kind of economy that we have. But we’re trying to build a broader movement of tenants and coalition groups around the city to try to get stronger protections and get the buildings departments to be more proactive when they’re dealing with some of the abuses that happen.

What is special about the LES that is worth preserving?

I think the Lower East Side a unique place because it is racially and ethnically diverse. I think it’s a community. A lot of other communities that are somewhat diverse, don’t feel like they really come together very much.

In the Lower East Side, I’ve seen many examples of people coming together and showing their support for people’s building struggles or struggles around different sites. I just think this is the kind of community where people rally together to support other people’s struggles. So many different movements have come out of this neighborhood, the Labor Movement, feminist activists and so many writers and artists. You can go down the line. So many oppositional struggles have an important origin here or important figures who have stepped forward from this community who have had an integral part in those struggles.

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As a New York University student, the word “gentrification” is something that I am very aware of. NYU’s role as one of New York City’s largest property owners is visually evident as the University has very rapidly expanded to encompass large parts of both the West and East Villages. It is of no surprise that when community organizers, preservationists, and Lower East Side residents speak of my University, it is usually with disdain and accompanied with angry looks. As an NYU student who doesn’t support my University’s seemingly insatiable appetite for expansion, I think its extremely important to understand the work that Cooper Square Committee does to protect the people who have lived here and the buildings that have been here far longer than NYU. As a member of the Lower East Side community, I am also affected by the gentrification of my neighborhood and am at risk of not being able to afford to be a part of a community that I believe to be one of the most colorful, diverse, and passionate that I have ever seen.

Cooper Square Committee follows in the community organizing footsteps of such organizations as the International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union of the early 1900s. It stands as a testament of the power of a united community, and as a symbol of the future of the Lower East Side. As long as there are people who care enough to organize, the Lower East Side is here to stay.

 - Written by Erica Cheung

Summer’s Different
April 25 – May 12, 2013

After so many years of waiting and waiting, and changing dates and waiting some more, the construction that has temporarily displaced several of FAB’s members, including Paradise Factory, Iati Theater and Teatro Circulo, is finally near completion. In accordance, Teatro Circulo has announced a few “Save the Dates” to keep on your radar.

• June 2013 – 74 seat Black Box Theater, 45 seat Black Box Theater and 20′ x 40′ Rehearsal Studio (same dimensions as 74 seat theater) and office space available to rent at competitive rates
• September 2013 – Teatro Circulo’s Gala Performance
• Fall 2013 – Opening of the Fall Season!

Below are a few snapshots of what we’ve all been patiently waiting for. Still not entirely finished, but so, so close, and plenty to get excited over. Sign up for Teatro Circulo’s mailing list to hear all the updates as they come in!

Progress in Teatro Circulo's Theaters

The time for the New Museum‘s IDEAS CITY is here! And it’s growing presence is popping up more and more around the neighborhood. In fact, FAB had the pleasure of connecting artist Terry Smith to public art space for his project Capital Revisited, commissioned by The Drawing Center as part of IDEAS CITY. In turn, La MaMa E.T.C. is also lending their basement as Smith’s impromptu studio (as well as being another exhibition site). Capital Revisited is a “a series of wall and window drawings of an architectural capital,” branching from Smith’s 1995 piece Capital at the British Museum – continuing the conversation of tapping “untapped capital,” the focus of this year’s IDEAS CITY festival.

Catch Smith’s drawings out and about at the addresses listed below, and be sure to catch FAB’s own Tamara Greenfeld during the IDEAS CITY World Cafe: Identifying the Neighbors Workshop this Friday morning @ 10:00am. On Saturday, stop by FAB’s tent for creative, sustainable art-making and activities, and take a guided tour of Smith’s public art drawings the IDEAS CITY StreetFest from 11:00am -6:00pm.

Sites of Capital Revisited:

Extra Place, cement sidewalk blocks: alley off East 1st Street (between Bowery and 2nd Ave)
First Street Green, 33 East 1st Street (at East Houston and 2nd Ave)
Ideal Glass, gallery facade: 22 East 2nd Street (between Bowery and 2nd Ave)
La MaMa Backwall Arcade, 17 East 3rd Street (between Bowery and 2nd Ave)
La MaMa Basement space: 66-68 East 4th Street (between Bowery and 2nd Ave)
L’Apicio, restaurant windows: 13 East First Street(between Bowery and 2nd Ave)

Duo Multicultural Arts Center presents: Confessions of a Cuban Sex Addict

A Performative Exhibition by Michelangelo Alasa’ - May 10 – June 21, Fridays at 8PM

Artist Reception & Talkback: Friday, May 17, 2013, 9:30 PM

For years, artist Michelangelo Alasa’ has brought artists from across genres to incubate and present innovative artworks in historic Duo Theater.

Now, Alasa’ shares his personal journey through Confessions, a snapshot of his queer coming-of-age experience during the 1960s. Cathartic in nature, this performative exhibition reminds us of our deepest secrets, darkest longings, and biggest triumphs.

Attendees will be invited to write their own “confessions” on a gallery wall.

FREE; Reservation required at Smarttix.com

Read more about Confessions...