quote:

> The New York Times
> July 4, 2006
>
> For $1, a Collective Mixing Art and Radical Politics Turns Itself Into
> Its Own Landlord
>
> By COLIN MOYNIHAN
>
> For decades the stretch of Rivington Street running east from Essex
> Street was a largely forgotten and gritty pocket of the Lower East
> Side, home to bodegas, nail salons and blue-collar residents. Over the
> last 10 years, though, the area has evolved into one of Manhattan's
> trendy neighborhoods, with new restaurants, bars and boutiques.
> Roaming heroin dealers have given way to throngs of young, noisy
> visitors.
>
> Standing on the north side of Rivington, between Suffolk and Clinton
> Streets, is one of the few buildings that have barely changed in two
> decades: a crumbling, four-story structure that at one time was
> inhabited by squatters and now houses ABC No Rio, a community and
> cultural center that seeks to explore the interaction of art and
> radical politics. The building has a prominent place in the lore of
> the Lower East Side, and at times has had a rocky relationship with
> City Hall.
>
> Some of the artists who helped found the group first came together
> with the unsanctioned takeover of an abandoned building on Delancey
> Street. A little later, when members of the group moved a block north
> to a vacant building on Rivington Street, they battled attempts by the
> city to evict them.
>
> Those days of disagreement have finally come to an end.
>
> Last week, the city sold the building, 156 Rivington Street, to ABC No
> Rio for $1, said Neill Coleman, a spokesman for the Department of
> Housing Preservation and Development. The transaction came after years
> of negotiations, and one of the conditions was that the nonprofit
> collective that runs the building had to raise hundreds of thousands
> of dollars to begin renovations. Mr. Coleman said the city sometimes
> sells buildings for a dollar to community or cultural organizations
> because such groups provide a benefit to the public.
>
> "ABC No Rio exists as a resource for people with a diverse set of
> politics and a very broad sense of what is art," Eric Goldhagen, a
> collective member, said. "They can exchange ideas in a nondogmatic
> atmosphere out of which dynamic and interesting projects tend to
> grow."
>
> The group raised its money primarily in small donations, some from
> local backers and some from artists and musicians in other cities and
> countries who had never visited the center but admired its history of
> surviving amid political and economic struggles; many of them faced
> similar difficulties in running performance spaces in expensive urban
> areas.

quote:

NEW YORK -- Police are investigating the death of an unidentified man found clad in leather early Wednesday on a Manhattan street.

A dog-walker found the body along Hudson Street in the West Village, police said.

The man, believed to be in his early 40s, was wearing a leather mask, leather clothing and two collars, according to police.

Police said he was slumped over, with one of the collars hooked on the spike of a 4-foot fence.

The medical examiner will determine the cause of death.

© 2006 by The Associated Press