Alphabet Soup, Savor it While it's Hot

ABC No Rio, founded in 1980, has had the neighborhood dramatically change around it. In an area that's now starting to have $135.00 dinners it seems some what anachronistic. ABC No Rio’s entrance, rusty gates and geological layers of graffiti, as well as its grass roots political stance, that resulted in fighting City Hall for more than 20 years, has made me cherish it like a Gem Spa eggcream or a Coney Island knish.

That will soon change for ABC No Rio is raising funds for a new building. I will be a green sustainable pleasant building, with bright and lovely art and community spaces. In a way, I wish huge chunks of the old facade could be preserved in a glass hothouse, like the Temple of Dendur, it would be a great way to commemorate a place where artists took some power for themselves.

P.S. The name came from a beat-up sign that had once read “Abogado Con Notario” but was missing so many letters that it seemed to spell out “ABC No Rio.”