Page "ABC No Rio" Paragraph 3

Beginning in the late 1960s, the Lower East Side of Manhattan was facing massive disinvestment by absentee landlords — by the late 1970s up to 80 % of the area's housing stock was abandoned and in rem ( seized by the city's government for non-payment of taxes ).

By the late 1970s and 1980s, a growing squatter movement and a small but visible “ downtown ” arts scene developed from within the burgeoning gentrification of the largely Puerto Rican community in the Lower East Side.