| ABC No Rio | |
|---|---|
 Cover of the bookABC No Rio Dinero. Cover art byJoseph Nechvatal | |
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| General information | |
| Status | Under construction |
| Location | 156Rivington Street,New York, New York, USA |
| Coordinates | 40°43′9″N73°59′7.5″W / 40.71917°N 73.985417°W /40.71917; -73.985417 |
| Owner | ABC No Rio |
| Website | |
| abcnorio | |
ABC No Rio is a collectively-runnonprofit arts organization onNew York City'sLower East Side.[1] Founded in 1980 in asquat at 156Rivington Street, following the eviction of the 1979–80Real Estate Show, the center featured anart gallery space, azine library, adarkroom, asilkscreening studio, and publiccomputer lab. In addition, it played host to a number of radical projects including weeklyhardcore punkmatinees and the cityFood Not Bombs collective. ABC No Rio was directed bySteven Englander from 1998 until his death in 2024.
In July 2016, ABC No Rio vacated the Rivington Street building in advance ofdemolition 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.
On July 16 2024, ABC No Rio broke ground on their new building--a four-story art center located at their original Rivington Street location.[2] The projected completion date is January 2026.[3] In April of 2025, Allied Productions, Inc. co-presented with ABC No Rio an exhibition calledABC No Rio 45 Years at the Emily Harvey Foundation in New York City.[4]
Beginning in the late 1960s, Manhattan'sLower East Side was facing massivedisinvestment by absenteelandlords—by the late 1970s up to 80% of the area's housing stock was abandoned andin rem (seized by the city's government for non-payment of taxes). By the late 1970s and 1980s, a growingsquatter movement and a small but visible “downtown” arts scene developed from within the burgeoning gentrification of the largelyPuerto Rican community on the Lower East Side.[5]
ABC No Rio itself grew out of the 1979The Real Estate Show, organized by the artists' groupColab (Collaborative Projects), in which a large group of artists seeking to foster connections between these communities occupied an abandoned building at 123Delancey Street and turned it into a gallery to showsolidarity 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 called for "no rights"; instead, it was "preemptive andinsurrectionary." The show opened to the public on January 1, 1980; it was promptly shut down before the morning of January 2 by theNew 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.[6]The name derives from the remaining letters of a mostly burnt-outneon sign that was in the front window of the building. It had read "Abogado Con Notario," meaning "lawyer andnotary public" in Spanish. But all that remained were the letters "Ab C No rio."[7][8][9]
ABC No Rio was conceived of as an "art-making center,"[who?] 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."[10]
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 tocode, 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, aFood 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.[11]
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.[12]
ABC No Rio's new building was designed by architect Paul Castrucci.[13] It will meet the rigorouspassive house standard for energy efficiency. It will be significantly more efficient than the state energy code requires, making it alow-energy house. Castrucci commented in 2016 that it would become “one of the most energy-efficient buildings in the city.”[12] 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 Vélezcommunity center and the punk gigs moved to Brooklyn.[14]
Since 1980, ABC No Rio has hosted many projects. It runs as a collective of collectives. The individual projects enjoy a great deal ofautonomy 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 theMuseum of Reclaimed Urban Space.[15]
Perhaps ABC No Rio's best-known project is the Punk/Hardcore Collective. Since December 1989 and while the Rivington Street building was open, ABC No Rio has hosted weeklypunk andhardcore matinees on Saturday afternoons. They go back to the initiative of Mike Bromberg, former singer ofNew York Hardcore band SFA, who suggested running hardcore shows to the building collective and organized the first shows.[16] For most of the 1980s, the NYC punk/hardcore scene had been focused around the Sunday matinees atCBGB's. 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, andmachismo that had taken over CBGB's matinees, and to this day follows a policy of booking onlyindependent (i.e., non-major label) bands that do not in any way promote sexism, racism and homophobia.[17] ABC No Rio is also one of the few places in New York City to host regular punk/hardcore shows that areall-ages.[18]
Organized by saxophonist Blaise Siwula, the weekly Sunday evening show called COMA (citizens ontological music agenda) was ABC No Rio's series of experimental and improvisational music: electric, acoustic, free jazz and free form with many artists including bassist and WREK's Destroy All Music's Tony Gordon.
ABC No Rio holds a large collection ofzines formerly hosted by the now-defunctLower East Side radicalbookstore andinfoshop Blackout! Books. The collection spans over two decades, and features many zines with a radical political perspective, or a focus on punk and otherDIY art forms. In 2014, an exhibition at theCenter for Book Arts calledZines + the World of ABC No Rio drew on the collection.[17]
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