History

We trace our genesis to The Real Estate Show, an intervention in which more than thirty artists, many associated with Colab, occupied an abandoned building and mounted an exhibition addressing New York City housing and land use policies on New Year’s Day 1980. The police quickly shut down the show and confiscated the artwork. Artists managed to force the City into negotiations, which resulted in the City offering them the storefront and basement at 156 Rivington Street. That space became ABC No Rio.

During its 45 years, ABC No Rio has hosted an incredible range of artistic expression, addressing political issues including war, homelessness, drugs, sex, violence, and housing and real estate. In the mid-eighties, No Rio helped energize the burgeoning East Village performance scene and was instrumental in the resurgence of spoken word and performance poetry. In the late eighties, No Rio became active in the hardcore music scene, instituting a policy of not booking racist, sexist, or homophobic bands. To this day, ABC No Rio remains one of the best-loved punk venues in the world.

Our space has always been available to the community and other organizations for meetings, workshops, forums, benefits, and other community services. Throughout the nineties, ABC No Rio was closely associated with the New York City squatters’ movement. ABC No Rio has also provided space and other resources to Food Not Bombs and Books Through Bars.

When the City sought to evict ABC No Rio in the mid-90s, more than 2,500 people signed petitions and hundreds sent letters to City officials on No Rio’s behalf. ABC No Rio supporters in Prague protested the attempted eviction at the U.S. Consulate. In February 1997, five of our supporters in New York were arrested demonstrating their willingness to defend ABC No Rio.

Recognition and support for ABC No Rio is and has been widespread and intense. In 1990, Kunstlerhaus in Hamburg, Germany, mounted the show “10 Years, Seven Days,” a celebration of ABC No Rio’s first decade. The founding of ABC No Rio played an important part in the “Cultural Economies” show at The Drawing Center, and in the summer of 1998, ABC No Rio volunteers reviewed and appraised our own history for the “Urban Encounters” exhibition at The New Museum for Contemporary Art.

In 1997, the City of New York presented ABC No Rio a tremendous opportunity: The Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD) offered to sell us our building on 156 Rivington Street for one dollar if we could raise the money to rehabilitate the building for dedicated community use. Our Capital Campaign fundraised almost $500,000 for our Building Renovation Fund, and on June 29, 2006, we acquired title to the property.

Volunteers transformed 156 Rivington from a tenement building to a full-fledged community center with a visual arts gallery and performance space, zine library, photography darkroom, silkscreen printing shop and walk-in computer lab. Volunteers also conceived of and ran shorter-term projects, such as comedy improv series for adults and free photography and drawing classes for neighborhood youth. Unlike the increasingly popular makerspaces, No Rio has never charged membership fees for program and facility use.

Our New Building

In 1997, our tenancy issues with the City of New York were favorably resolved and presented ABC No Rio with a tremendous opportunity. The Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD) offered to sell us our building at 156 Rivington Street for one dollar if we raised the money to rehabilitate the building and dedicate it to community use.

In the summer of 2003, we met with HPD officials to discuss our plans. We proposed breaking our project into phases, and they added that they would be willing to begin the city review process before we had all the money in place. The review process (ULURP – Uniform Land Use Review Process) concluded in December 2005. On June 29, 2006, we acquired title to the property on Rivington Street.

Envisioned for the site is a multi-use community and arts center with photo darkroom, silk-screen printshop, zine 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 facility has been designed by local architect Paul Castrucci. It features a planted facade suggestive of the utopian vision of the Lower East Side described by Peter Lamborn Wilson in Avant Gardening, and will be constructed in line with our environmental politics, utilizing sustainable design principles. You can read more of the details here.