Mystery Loisaida Arts-Center Buyer Revealed
By Steven Wishnia and Kathleen McGowan

Downtown culture activists have finally identified the mysterious buyer of the Lower East Side’s Charas/El Bohio cultural center. Documents obtained by Charas through a Freedom of Information Act request by City Council Speaker Peter Vallone confirm that Gregg Singer is the actual buyer, as they had suspected.

The city auctioned off the cavernous former high school that houses the center on July 20 (Tenant/Inquilino, Sept. ’98), but the Department of Citywide Administrative Services, which managed the auction, refused to reveal the buyer’s name.

Lower East Side art supporters mounted an all-out campaign to identify the purchaser, screening auction videotapes and calling on inside city sources. They brought a little downtown street theater to Singer’s West 80th Street doorstep, picketing his apartment building and demanding that the sale be rescinded.

Supporters of the East Ninth Street landmark expected the buyer to be identified early last month, 45 days after the sale, but the city didn’t come through with the name until after the Council’s FOIA request. The 100-year-old building sold for $3.15 million with the caveat that it be retained for community use. Current Charas chair and Democratic District Leader Armando Perez says the designation means little. He suspects the property will be developed for market-rate housing for the elderly. According to an activist working with Charas, the documents say the city will not require Singer to disclose his plans for the building until after Charas’ lawsuit against the sale is resolved.

Charas has long embodied the low-rent, high-drama spirit of the neighborhood, providing cheap rehearsal and meeting space to legions of artists, 12-steps group members, and politicos—the arts center boasts Spike Lee and John Leguizamo among its alumni. A Sept. 3 press conference saw several dozen small-theater producers, filmmakers, and performers turn out to speak on Charas’ behalf. Perez plans to begin a hunger strike when the sale is completed, saying he is willing to die to save the center. Charas and Suffolk Street’s Clemente Soto Velez cultural center are two of the last vestiges of the Lower East Side arts scene. CSV was pulled from the auction block three days before the July auction. CSV president Ed Vega says the building won’t be up for sale at the city’s October auction either.

Portions of this article reprinted with permission from City Limits Weekly.