10th Anniversary Mixtape Press Release

 

Museum of Reclaimed Urban Space Marks Milestone with

10th Anniversary Mixtape Weekend, Sept 8 – 11

 

Blend of the Best from 10 Years of Film Festivals, Book Fairs, Walking Tours, Workshops and 

More to Culminate With Gala at Nublu With DJ Dany Johnson, 

Live Performance By Pinc Louds

 

New York, NY August 26, 2022 — While its first role in the East Village as a Superstorm Sandy neighborhood relief station was impromptu, for 10 years The Museum of Reclaimed Urban Space (MoRUS) has planned and executed programming and events underscoring the history of grassroots activism in the community.  In addition to hosting workshops, collaborating with schools and colleges, and working with other museums, MoRUS has inspired a younger generation to create a new revolution of reclaiming their history and recreating their public urban space in a more sustainable, community-oriented way.  To celebrate this landmark year, MoRUS, along with partners The Anarchist Book Fair, The Emma Goldman Film Festival, Green Oasis Community Garden/Gilbert’s Garden, La Plaza Cultural Community Garden, Nublu, and Time’s Up, is set to present a four-day slate of events revisiting some of the museum’s most gripping films, in-demand workshops, beloved walking tours and dynamic speakers.  The MoRUS 10th Anniversary Mixtape Weekend is bookended by a film screening at La Plaza Cultural Community Garden, 9th Street and Avenue C on Thursday, September 8 at 8:00 PM, and a gala where DJ Dany Johnson, who spun at such legendary night spots as Club 57, Mudd Club, Pyramid, Area, The World and Mars, and the extraordinary band  Pinc Louds , which continues to make the East Village and beyond dance ecstatically, will play at Nublu, 151 Avenue C, from 5:00 to 9:00 PM. Tickets are available through Eventbrite.

 

The full MoRUS 10th Anniversary Mixtape Weekend schedule is as follows:

Thursday, September 8, 8:00 PM- Film Festival

La Plaza Cultural Community Garden, Southwest corner of 9th Street & Avenue C

Your House is Mine (65 minutes) – This documentary covers the history of squatting and the struggles to make the squatters’ housing permanent.

 

Takeover (37 minutes) – This film follows how the Young Lords stormed the Bronx’s Lincoln Hospital to call for better and more accessible healthcare. Director Emma Francis Snyder will introduce the film.

Friday, September 9, 8:00 PM – Film Festival:

Green Oasis Community Garden/Gilbert’s Garden, 370 East 8th Street, between Avenues C & D

Still We Ride (37 minutes)– This documentary covers a crucial time period during the growth of bicycling and non-polluting transportation when group bicycle rides were under attack from the NYPD. The film’s director Chris Ryan and Time’s Up/MoRUS executive director Chris Ryan and activist Bill DiPaola will introduce the film.

 

1971 (80 minutes) – This documentary chronicles the Citizens’ Commission to Investigate the FBI’s break-in to an FBI office in Pennsylvania and their discovery of documents that revealed the government’s shocking attempts to spy on and divide local community groups.  Heidi Boghosian, former director of the National Lawyers Guild and author of  Spying on Democracy  and I Have Nothing to Hide will introduce the  film.

 

Saturday, September 10

Radical  Spaces Walking Tour, 3:00 PM, also Sunday, Sept 11, 3:00 PM

To underscore MoRUS’s 10 years of walking tours through community gardens, squats and activist spaces, the museum has compiled Ten Things You Will Learn on the Lower East Side Radical History Tour That You Probably Didn’t Know:

1. How Puerto Rican neighborhood residents in the urban crisis of the 1970s transformed the rubble from destroyed tenement buildings into soil they could grow gardens out of.

2. How community gardens help protect New York City from the effects of climate change.

3. How New York City’s recycling program began as an initiative of Lower East Side community gardeners and activists.

4. How radical environmentalists used lock-down tactics pioneered in the old-growth forests of the Rockies and Redwoods to protect community gardens from the bulldozers of the real-estate developers.

5. What building in the East Village links the Gershwin brothers, the Black Panthers and Iggy Pop.

6. What park in the East Village was the secret birthplace of the cannabis legalization movement, the Hare Krishna movement, the Young Lords and Occupy Wall Street.

7. How that same park was the focus of repeated popular uprisings over a century and a half—including an armed insurrection that had to be put down by army troops.

8. Why the same area of the city has been variously known as Burnt Mill Point, Drydock, Klein Deutschland (Little Germany), the Lower East Side, Loisaida, the East Village and Alphabet City.

9. What was the indigenous Lenape name for what is now the Lower East Side before it was called any of those.

10. The radical politics of the songwriter who penned the “Wizard of Oz” soundtrack.

 

The Anarchist Book Fair, 2:00 – 7:00 PM

La Plaza Cultural Community Garden, 9th Street and Avenue C and MoRUS, 155 Avenue C

 

This annual exhibit of anarchist cultural materials will include activities, performances and workshops:

WORKSHOPS

• Bike Repair Class @ La Plaza Community Garden. 12:30 pm

Learn the basics of how your bicycle works and how to make simple repairs.

• Free Medicinal Herbal Workshop @ La Plaza Community Garden. 2:00 pm during the book fair in the plot area near the green house.

Learn how to heal yourself with plants that you can grow by yourself.

Plants to identify, plants to pick, plants to learn about, and of course tea. All led by Naturopath and herbalist, Noreen Kelly.

• The ABCs of Squatting @ The Museum of the Reclaimed Urban Space (C Squat), 155 Ave C, between 9th & 10th street NYC. 3:30 pm.

Housing advocates will share skills and insight into squatting. The session will be presented by Frank Morales and Bill Di Paolo and will include a slide presentation and Q&A on tools, building systems and the nuts and bolts of squatting. The ABCs of Squatting underscores the anarchist book fair by addressing people’s need for community-related low-cost housing through DIY ideology.  Participants will receive a free how-to zine on squatting. Special guest speaker Freddy will review undercover squatting and Christian will detail living on a boat.

 

EMMA GOLDMAN FILM FESTIVAL

7:30pm – 10pm at Tompkins Square Park [ East 10th St, New York, NY]

 

Sunday, September 11

 

Radical Spaces Walking Tour 3:00 PM

 

5:00 – 9:00 PM – MoRUS 10 Anniversary Mixtape Gala, Nublu- 151 Avenue C

This East Village hot spot where the music is always the focal point will be the site of the MoRUS Gala. DJ Dany Johnson, a musical pioneer who was not only a witness to New York City’s golden age of dance clubs, but is also a founding member of all-girl, percussion based, No Wave band Pulsallama who has produced records for John Sex and Frieda the Living Doll on her own label Varla Records.  Johnson has also been a stage manager/tech director for such amazing NYC productions as Wigstock and Night of a Thousand Stevies. A member of Foga Azul, one of New York City’s most powerful, gender non-conforming community musical groups, Johnson has performed with the band at various demonstrations, protests and cultural events.  Pinc Louds’ lead singer, Claudi (all pronouns accepted), moved from Puerto Rico to NYC in 2015 to fulfill her dream of playing in the subway. Through the “litteral” underground, Claudi met the musicians (drummer Rai Mundo and bassist Marc Mosteirin) and artists that would turn Pinc Louds into the full-blown spectacle they are today. The subway also opened many doors for the band, who would soon end up playing in such NYC venues as (le) Poisson Rouge, Joe’s Pub and Lincoln Center, as well as tours throughout the US, Puerto Rico, Europe and Chile.