Page "ABC No Rio" Paragraph 4

ABC No Rio itself grew out of the 1979 Real Estate Show, organized by the artists ' group Colab ( Collaborative Projects ), in which a large group of artists seeking to foster connections between these communities occupied an abandoned building at 123 Delancey St. and turned it into a gallery to show solidarity 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 it called for " no rights "; instead, it was " preemptive and insurrectionary.

" The show opened to the public on January 1, 1980 ; it was promptly shut down before the morning of January 2 by the New 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.

The name derives from the remaining letters of a mostly effaced sign that was on the building: " Abogado Con Notario.