A "for rent" sign now hangs above the 40-year-old home of the Yippie Museum at 9 Bleecker St. near the Bowery.
Tough times here of late at the headquarters of the counterculture group … Back on June 10, Colin Moynihan at The New York Times reported that Yippie leaders have been locked in an ongoing legal battle … fighting an attempt by a lender to foreclose on their home.
In addition, the Harmony Kitchen, the food vendor at the Yippie Museum Cafe, closed at the end of June. The space was closed during July for a "re-calculating" … eventually reopening at the end of the month.
This past Friday, the Yippie Museum Facebook page offered up the latest on the legal wrangling here:
The October court action fended off a summary eviction of Dana and Co. and Atty Noah Potter has arranged a court date for January where he will present documents in his possession that will help save #9. If justice may be had in today's courts...
Yippie leader and activist Dana Beal is currently serving a four-to-six year prison sentence after being caught hauling 150 pounds of pot in a van in Ashland, Neb., in 2009.
Back to Facebook:
Even a win there won't fully save #9, though. What is really needed is more people to come to #9 for meetings and events to raise funds and consciousness. This space is NOT a relic of the past but a living historical site for today's activist generation. USE IT OR LOSE IT has never had a better object lesson than at #9!!
For now, events continue to take place in the space…
Meanwhile, the building is on the market. According to the Corcoran listing:
Exceptional opportunity to rent an entire building in prime Greenwich Village / NoHo. The bottom two floors feature bars that are built out already. But these could also work well for retail. And the top two floors can be used for either residential or office space. Each of the 4 floors is approximately 1600 square feet.
This is truly an unbeatable Greenwich Village / NoHo location, on a block with high and brilliant visibility for business. Original details still in tact - including exposed brick, and a cast iron honey comb curved skylight which graces the ground floor, with 13' 6" ceilings. Old world charm ready for a new world establishment…
Asking price: $25,000
As the Yippie Museum Facebook page says: "time to save the yippie museum from the crapitalist wrecking ball..don't let 9 bleecker street turn into a gentrified yuppie boutique."
H/T @JonSpiegler
Previously on EV Grieve:
The Yippie Museum Cafe is in financial trouble
The Yippie Museum Cafe will reopen next Wednesday
15 comments:
$25,000 for all four floors? Is that right? If the Yippies had any sense, they could have rented out the top three floors for $8,334/month and stayed put.
Anon, they clearly had no business/fiscal sense for years.
I've been told they are difficult to work with, e.g., suspicious - and rightfully so IMO
They should hire the biscuits' "team of advisers" and PR person.
There is a Yippie Cat curse that comes along with this building and anyone renting it will SUFFER from the curse. For many,many years a very large number of Siamese cats have lived and run wild on the upper floors of Yippie house and the cat urine smell is overpowering and will never go away. Renter Beware !!!
People who believe in curses are magical thinkers. Time to put your reality boots on.
The smell of cat piss on the upper floors at Yippie house is very real and has been something people have talked about and smelled for years. No magic to it the smell will haunt Yippie house forever.
Pay your f**king mortgage, Yippies.
Whether you like the Yippies or not they have a long history of cultural and political positive input into NYC and National History [remember the Chicago anti Vietnam war protests] and the museum has tried to carry on and remember this tradition. In recent times many student and other groups used the space free of charge for organizing meetings. Comments like the usual anti cultural history preservation and lack of concern for the loss of another alternative space [soon there will be none left in NYC] like the one by anonymass above show the stupidity and corporate programming that puts no value on anything but ownership of property and greed. Go F yourself Anonymass !!
Renting the place also comes with the threat of a bunch of pissed off kids having open mic night each week right outside...... - Comrade El
Maybe Alice, can get the green
This talk of cat piss being a problem is bullshit.
It would clearly be the perfect location for a High End Cafe
There would be a heightened sense of authenticity. People would gladly pay more.
Only the top two floors can be rented out. The bottom two are the Yippie. But I agree, the Yippies do not need 4 floors, which is what they have been using. The top two floors should have been rented out a long time ago. Clean up the cat piss and make the top two floors apartments that are attractive to people who might want to live there, and who can afford to live there. Then you put on shows and concerts in the basement that people will actually pay money for.
This may not be what it appears to be. I am getting info from peeps in NYC who have been holding open mics on the street in front of the cafe because they were not allowed inside that a Yippie faction that is in control of the building is the party attempting to rent out the space and not the owner who they are in court with. Not sure if this is true but it makes sense since the owner would not be able to rent the building until the court case was done. Up against the wall motherfuckers ! Whoever that might be ?
Since I've been in New York, the Brecht Forum has been on Franklin Street, West 29the Street, West Street, and now they're on Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn. Since they're still relevant, they can change locations. The Yippies fetishize their building because it's all they have.
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