Established | 2012 |
---|---|
Location | 155 Avenue C, Manhattan, New York 10009 |
Coordinates | 40°43′32.78″N73°58′40.68″W / 40.7257722°N 73.9779667°W |
Website | morusnyc |
The Museum of Reclaimed Urban Space (MoRUS) is a not-for profit museum founded by the Times Up! Environmental Organization in 2012. It is dedicated to archiving the history of community gardens, squatting, and grassroots environmental activism of the Lower East Side neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City. Located in the storefront of C-Squat at 155 Avenue C, the museum documents how neighborhood residents transformed abandoned spaces and lots in the neighborhood into squats and gardens. By preserving the neighborhood's history, the museum aims to educate communities and individuals to keep this form of sustainable, community-based activism alive. [1] : 247–264
During the 1970s recession, New York City cut back social services in many neighborhoods, which particularly affected the Lower East Side. Many landlords vacated their buildings, despite people still living in them, which lead to a large-scale diaspora from the neighborhood. The neighborhood was home to many artists, musicians, and activists. Residents actively resisted disinvestment on the part of the city and landlords, and instead of moving out, reclaimed these spaces. They repaired abandoned buildings, transforming them into communal living spaces such as homesteads, squats, and community centers. [1] : 249–253 In these spaces the new residents held collective meetings, skill-shares, and workdays to manage these spaces, while vacant lots were transformed into community gardens that served as gathering places. [2]
The Museum of Reclaimed Urban Space was founded by Bill Di Paola and Laurie Mittelmann to preserve the history of New York City's Lower East Side and promote the local communities that came together in order to make the neighborhood a cultural icon on New York City.[ citation needed ]
The museum is located in the storefront of C-Squat, one of the few still-occupied squats on the Lower East Side. [3] The museum is "decidedly local", run by local volunteers, and presents the neighborhood's history through a combination of exhibitions, walking tours, and events. [4] Permanent exhibitions explore various themes aspects of the neighborhood's radical history, including sustainability, activist spaces, and the Occupy Wall Street movement. Rotating exhibitions have covered 1980s political street posters and stencils and the community garden movement; a current exhibition documents the punk movement and its politics. The educational walking tours lead participants through neighborhood squats and community gardens, describing complex histories and struggles with developers and police over the control of urban space in the East Village. [5] The tour guides are neighborhood activists and historians. The museum claims that these activities and exhibitions "seeks to connect the neighborhood's history of activism with the principle of sustainability". [1] : 263 In 2020, the museum self-published a book, History of the East Village & Museum of Reclaimed Urban Space, which catalogs the history of MoRUS and that of the East Village. [6]
Battery Park City is a mainly residential 92-acre (37 ha) planned community and neighborhood on the west side of the southern tip of the island of Manhattan in New York City. It is bounded by the Hudson River on the west, the Hudson River shoreline on the north and south, and the West Side Highway on the east. The neighborhood is named for the Battery, formerly known as Battery Park, located directly to the south.
Alphabet City is a neighborhood located within the East Village in the New York City borough of Manhattan. Its name comes from Avenues A, B, C, and D, the only avenues in Manhattan to have single-letter names. It is bounded by Houston Street to the south and 14th Street to the north, and extends roughly from Avenue A to the East River. Some famous landmarks include Tompkins Square Park, the Nuyorican Poets Cafe and the Charlie Parker Residence.
The East Village is a neighborhood on the East Side of Lower Manhattan in New York City, United States. It is roughly defined as the area east of the Bowery and Third Avenue, between 14th Street on the north and Houston Street on the south. The East Village contains three subsections: Alphabet City, in reference to the single-letter-named avenues that are located to the east of First Avenue; Little Ukraine, near Second Avenue and 6th and 7th Streets; and the Bowery, located around the street of the same name.
Avenue C is a north-south avenue located in the Alphabet City area of the East Village neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City, east of Avenue B and west of Avenue D. It is also known as Loisaida Avenue. It starts at South Street, proceeding north as Montgomery Street and Pitt Street, before intersecting East Houston Street and assuming its proper name. Avenue C ends at 23rd Street, running nearly underneath the FDR Drive from 18th Street. North of 14th Street, the road forms the eastern boundary of Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village.
East River Park, also called John V. Lindsay East River Park, is 57.5-acre (20 ha) public park located on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, administered by the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation. Bisected by the Williamsburg Bridge, it stretches along the East River from Montgomery Street up to 12th Street on the east side of the FDR Drive. Its now-demolished amphitheater, built in 1941 just south of Grand Street, had been reconstructed and was often used for public performances. The park includes football, baseball, and soccer fields; tennis, basketball, and handball courts; a running track; and bike paths, including the East River Greenway, all of which are to be demolished. Fishing is another popular activity, for now.
ABC No Rio is a collectively-run non-profit arts organization on New York City's Lower East Side. It was founded in 1980 in a squat at 156 Rivington Street, following the eviction of the 1979-80 Real Estate Show. The centre featured an art gallery space, a zine library, a darkroom, a silkscreening studio, and public computer lab. In addition, it played host to a number of radical projects including weekly hardcore punk matinees and the city Food Not Bombs collective.
Guerrilla gardening is the act of gardening – raising food, plants, or flowers – on land that the gardeners do not have the legal rights to cultivate, such as abandoned sites, areas that are not being cared for, or private property. It encompasses a diverse range of people and motivations, ranging from gardeners who spill over their legal boundaries to gardeners with a political purpose, who seek to provoke change by using guerrilla gardening as a form of protest or direct action. This practice has implications for land rights and land reform; aiming to promote re-consideration of land ownership in order to assign a new purpose or reclaim land that is perceived to be in neglect or misused. Some gardeners work at night, in relative secrecy, in an effort to make the area more useful or attractive, while others garden during the day for publicity.
The High Line is a 1.45-mile-long (2.33 km) elevated linear park, greenway and rail trail created on a former New York Central Railroad spur on the west side of Manhattan in New York City. The High Line's design is a collaboration between James Corner Field Operations, Diller Scofidio + Renfro, and Piet Oudolf. The abandoned spur has been redesigned as a "living system" drawing from multiple disciplines which include landscape architecture, urban design, and ecology. The High Line was inspired by the 4.7 km (2.9 mi) long Coulée verte, a similar project in Paris completed in 1993.
C-Squat is a former squat house located at 155 Avenue C in the Alphabet City neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City that has been home to musicians, artists, and activists, among others. After a fire, it was taken into city ownership in 1978 and squatters moved in in 1989. The building was restored in 2002 and since then it has been legally owned by the occupants. Its ground-floor storefront now houses the Museum of Reclaimed Urban Space.
The Urban Homesteading Assistance Board (UHAB), formed in 1974, is a city-wide non-profit housing and tenant advocacy group in New York City.
Adam Purple was an American activist and urban Edenist or "Guerrilla Gardener" famous in New York City for his "Garden of Eden". His birth name was David Lloyd Wilkie, although he went by many others, including "Rev. Les Ego".
Historically, squatting occurred in the United States during the California Gold Rush and when colonial European settlers established land rights. There was squatting during the Great Depression in Hoovervilles and also during World War II. Shanty towns returned to the US after the Great Recession (2007–2009) and in the 2010s, there were increasing numbers of people occupying foreclosed homes using fraudulent documents. In some cases, a squatter may be able to obtain ownership of property through adverse possession.
La Plaza Cultural de Armando Perez is a community garden and public green space in the East Village neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City. Serving as a community garden, park, playground, wildlife refuge, urban farm, community composting site, and performance venue, La Plaza Cultural is also utilized by local day-care centers, after-school programs and a growing number of parents with small children. The garden has been known to grow a number of various edible plants including fruits, vegetable, and herbs. The lot is approximately 0.64 acres and consists of at least 11 members.
Time's Up! Environmental Organization was founded in 1987 to help educate New Yorkers about environmental awareness. One of its main focuses is to promote non-polluting transportation, by advocating bicycling.
CHARAS/El Bohio Community Center was a neighborhood organization and squatted community center in New York's East Village between 1979 and 2001.
Umbrella House is a former squat and a Housing Development Fund Corporation in New York City's East Village, at 21-23 Avenue C. The squat, formed in 1988, was known for its political engagement and high level of collective organization among its members. In 2010, the building officially became a housing cooperative.
Community gardens in New York City are urban green spaces created and cared for by city residents who steward the often underutilized land. There are over 550 community gardens on city property, over 745 school gardens, over 100 gardens in land trusts, and over 700 gardens at public housing developments throughout New York City. The community garden movement in NYC began in the Lower East Side during the disrepair of the 1960s on vacant, unused land. These first gardens were tended without governmental permission or assistance.
Operation Move-In was a housing and squatter rights movement of the 1970s. The movement consisted of various anti-poverty and community organizations in New York City, including Metropolitan Council on Housing. It was an early example of New York City squatter activism, which strengthened in the 1980s, and helped publicize tenant rights.
Carmen Pabón del Amanecer Jardín, also known as Carmen's Garden and El Bello Amanecer Boriqueño Garden, is a 4,635-square-foot (430.6 m2) community garden at 117 Avenue C, in the East Village of Manhattan, New York City. Carmen Pabón del Amanecer Jardín is named after Carmen Pabon, a Lower East Side poet and gardener who died in 2016 at the age of 95.
Bullet Space is a legalized squat, artists' collective and art gallery on the Lower East Side of New York City, founded in 1986 by Andrew and Paul Castrucci, among others. In 2009, it was legalized by the city.
Media related to Museum of Reclaimed Urban Space at Wikimedia Commons