A living archive of urban activism, the Museum of Reclaimed Urban Space rented a storefront for its exhibits from C-Squat on Avenue C — and, like neighboring businesses, soon found itself clearing up after Hurricane Sandy.
C SQUAT
Photos: Sandy Hits the East Village
By KONSTANTIN SERGEYEVWe posted a few cell phone shots of Sandy’s aftermath yesterday. Here now are some proper photographs of the storm and its wake, by photographer and C-Squat resident Konstantin Sergeyev. Stay tuned for this morning’s update.
Konstantin Sergeyev Avenue C becomes a river.Sitting Down to Talk Squatting With Homesteading Museum Founders
By JARED MALSIN
Jared Malsin MoRUS founders Laurie Mittelmann, left, and BillDiPaola, right.
After seven months of negotiations, the creators of the Museum of Reclaimed Urban Space have finally signed a lease and are busy fundraising, compiling photos and video, and renovating the storefront inside the legendary collective building C-Squat, where the East Village’s first squatting and homesteading museum will be housed.
The signing of the lease on Thursday with the Urban Homesteading Assistance Board marked the formal launch of the project, which is already staging what organizer Laurie Mittelmann calls “spontaneous tours” of squats, community gardens and other sites of street-level confrontation with police and developers over the control of urban space in the East Village since the 1970s.
On Tuesday, The Local visited the Museum’s dedicated video compiling facility (we were asked not to disclose its location), where two of the project’s 30 volunteers were hunched over computers logging video onto hard drives. (Time’s Up has donated over 400 hours of footage to the museum.) On one video, police were issuing a ticket to performance artist Reverend Billy during a 2006 demonstration.
During our visit, Ms. Mittelmann and co-director Bill DiPaola spoke about their vision and plans for the new museum. Read more…
On Ave. C, ‘The Countercultural Squat’
By ROBYN BAITCHERAt 155 Avenue C, a seemingly ordinary five-floor walkup bears an unusual handmade sign: “This Land Is Ours. See Co-Op Squat. Not For Sale.”
This is See Squat, one of 11 remaining squatters’ buildings in the East Village. Now technically a co-op, the building has retained its character as, in the words of one resident, “the countercultural squat.”
Many of the residents at See Squat view one another as a family that has come together from varied pasts – including drug addiction and homelessness – to build and maintain a community on Avenue C with their own hands.
NYU Journalism’s Robyn Baitcher reports.
