LAND GRAB AT CITY AUCTION THREATENS COMMUNITY CENTER

By A. Kronstadt
+ Chris Flash

Hundreds of bidders and scores of demonstrators attended the auction of city-owned properties at Police Plaza on July 20. Outside, as 300 or so bidders waited on line, a circus atmosphere prevailed.

The Bread + Puppet Theatre performed a sketch depicting gardens fighting off real estate developers; the Yo! Stop The Mayor Orchestra! sang "What You Do Comes Back To You;" people in costume promenaded with signs; speakers and people handing out leaflets informed bidders of community opposition and warned them of pending legal action over the sale of garden sites and the Charas/El Bohio Community Center on the Lower East Side.

On line with the bidders were well-dressed and disguised protestors. Some were there to make false bids or to interrupt the auction, while others sought to occupy as many seats as possible to prevent bidders from attending the auction.

Inside, as Lower East Side properties were offered for sale, a cop read a warning that anyone disrupting the bidding process would be removed and subject to arrest. Police presence in front of the stage was beefed up.

After a few Lower East Side parcels were sold, shreiks and screams were heard as real estate developers and speculators jumped on chairs to escape the sudden appearance of 10,000 crickets throughout the auditorium. The auctioneer implored the audience to "calm down" as cops and clean up crews got rid of the crickets.

When the auction resumed half an hour later, a vacant lot on East Second Street had to be put up for sale several times after phoney bidders got the price up beyond $300,000. Some were evicted for making false bids. After a few repeats, the auctioneer demanded that bidders "show cash" and stand in front of the auditorium in order to bid. At that point, more demonstrators made their presence known and were tossed out by cops, some of whom violently shoved and threw them to the ground. Of those removed, only five were arrested. Neighborhood artist and videographer Clayton Patterson was charged with assault after several cops jumped him when he refused to release his video camera to them.

In the end, all properties were sold, including Charas, which went for $3.15 million. The Clemente Soto Velez Cultural Center, located at Suffolk + Rivington Streets in a former school building, was removed from the auction list. According to Clemente Soto president Ed Vega, this was because his group chose a "non-confrontational" strategy with the city. By contrast, Charas, which is also in a former school building, has had to fight the city's attempts to sell their building to real estate developers, most recently in 1997. SHADOW sources believe that the decision to put Charas on the auction block was orchestrated by Antonio Pagan, the mayor's Commissioner of Employment and a former City Council member frequently at odds with Charas head Armando Perez. Pagan denied any role in the sale, but said he welcomes it.

The Charas buyer, whose identity was kept secret by the city despite heavy pressure by local politicians, was discovered to be Sing Fina Corp., associated with Singer Financial Corporation. On August 3, Sing Fina assigned its interests to the newly-created 9th + 10th Street Limited Liability Company. All are located at 186 West 80th Street and are headed by small-time developer Gregg Singer.

It is believed that Singer and his entities are either shills for the real buyer of Charas' building, or that they are trying to obtain additional financing or partners who will enable Singer to abide by the restrictive covenant that limits the site to "Community Facility Use" and still make money. Sources have indicated that Singer has plans to lease the property to a "for-profit" nursing home, which would charge large Medicare and Medicaid fees, but still be within the constraints of the use restriction.

But, according to SHADOW sources, Singer's "anchor tenant"--the nursing home--may have pulled out of the deal. Sing Fina has been circulating an advertisement (inadvertently sent to an advocacy group friendly to Charas)offering space in the "School Building" to "health-care facilities, clinics, physician groups, organizations in the helping field, and the arts." Perez was pleased to see the ad because it seems to indicate that Singer lacks tenants and will therefore have trouble getting financing. "They have put down a $600,000 down payment, and they will default if they don't come up with the balance of $2.5 million, and without anchor tenants already in place, no bank is going to loan a little company like Sing Fina that kind of money," Perez told the SHADOW. Perez also congratulates local activists for the disappearance of Singer's tenant--"they thought that the activism was all going to chill out after a month or so, but in the months following the auction, all kinds of groups have formed that are fighting to save Charas, and this is an embarrassment to anybody who might have been thinking of moving in."

One ad hoc group that has formed is Artist Strike for Charas/El Bohio, which, on October 14, peacefully disrupted the shooting of Robert De Niro's film "Flawless" on 13th Street and Ave. A, a few blocks from the community center, to protest the planned eviction. The group dropped confetti, brightly covered pieces of Mylar, and eggshells packed with difficult-to-remove "glitter" onto crucial parts of the set, and also activated portable security alarms while filming was attempted. Though officials of the production company deny that the disruption was significant, protesters saw De Niro leave the set almost immediately after the protest began.

On October 22, fifty activists crowded the sidewalk outside Charas to await the arrival of Gregg Singer, who wanted a "walk-through" of Charas' building with bankers from whom he was attempting to borrow cash. Chanting "Get Out of Our Neighborhood," as a brass band--one of the many musical groups that rehearses at Charas--played "We Shall Not Be Moved," protestors watched as the bankers, city bureaucrats and developers worked up the nerve to walk through the unfriendly crowd. None would tell reporters which one of them was Gregg Singer.

Singer and his entourage toured the building unmolested, except for the dozens of placards stuck to the walls denouncing "Greedy Gregg Singer," which had been placed there in his honor. On the roof, Singer and his group discussed their intention to add a couple of new floors to the five story school building, although they were vague about what they would do inside the building.

Perez told the SHADOW, "The plan to add extra floors gives us a new angle to fight from, because something like that has to go through both Community Board Three and the City Council, and a majority support us in both places. We have meetings planned with environmental and housing lawyers, and we're going to take it to New York's highest court."

Perez added, "The excuse for auctioning the building was that the city needed money, but do you know what all these lawyers are costing the city in fees? Eventually, they may realize that it'll be easier to just sell the building to us so we can keep doing our work. Before they put the building on the auction block, they were offering to let us have it for $365,000, which we know we could raise."

It is unknown what effect running the gauntlet of protestors had on the bankers' willingness to loan Singer money, but it was certainly not a routine part of negotiating a mortgage. Susan Howard, one of the protest organizers, told the SHADOW, "We hope this will make financiers realize that this is a bad investment."

Meanwhile, Charas continues its operations, with full bookings of rehearsal and exhibition space, and activities ranging from collection of supplies for Puerto Rican and Dominican hurricane relief to daily meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous. Charas' lease now runs only from month to month, and the Department of Citywide Administrative Services (DCAS)could issue an eviction notice at any time.

Those who wish to call the parties involved with the attempted takeover and destruction of Charas/El Bohio can call:

Sing Fina Corp. (Gregg Singer, owner) at 212-873-5500; R.E.L.D. Development Corp. (Singer's contractor) at 212-679-920. For more info on actions to save Charas, call the Lower East Side Collective at 212-774-4192.