Armando Perez: Martyr Of Loisaida Libre
by Bill WeinbergThis interview took place July 22, 1998 on Steal This Radio, the Lower East Side’s “pirate” microbroadcaster on 88.7 FM, now fighting a federal attempt to shut it down.
TENANT/INQUILINO: Why don’t you start at the beginning and tell us what the whole struggle over Charas has been?
Armando Perez: We’ve been in that building for nineteen years now. The building was used as a shooting gallery, prostitution, and finally they started stripping the building for anything worth anything. The roof was torn off. When we saw that the front doors were gone, that’s when we decided enough is enough. We went in and we squatted the building. It was about a year later that we finally got a month-to-month lease [from the city]. All the repairs that were done in that building were done by us, through the sweat equity that we put in, the fundraising that we’ve done. When we put a show, a production or an art exhibit together, many times it’s with a message about social injustice. We did a play called We Don’t Want No Cheese, We Want Apartments Please, back when the United States was giving out cheese all over the place. We were putting out the message that cheese is not the answer, that the answer is a roof over peoples’ heads. We tackle issues like domestic violence; we did a play Amor Que Mata, A Love That Kills.
I found out about two and half years ago that our building was gonna be put on the auction block. Giuliani was coming after us and he was coming after us bigtime. One of the people who was behind this was our ex-Councilperson Antonio Pagan.
I believe that the mayor thought that the only support that we would receive as an organization would be from the Lower East Side—which is not his constituency so he really didn’t give a damn. But he got a rude awakening when the support came from Europe, it came from South America, it came from Mexico, it came from all over the United States, and it came from every borough in this city.
We already had two solid proposals, which we mailed them a week before the first meeting between our board and the Giuliani administration. We went in and sat down and the first thing they asked us was, “OK, what do you want us to sell you the building for? What are you willing to pay for it?” We said, “Well, we’d like you to sell it to us for one dollar.” And they laughed at us. And I said, “What’s so funny?” This is something which has been done throughout the years. But they said that was absolutely out of the question. They had to admit to us that they hadn’t even read our proposals. This is how arrogant this administration is.
The first proposal was for full community use of the building. They refused, so we moved on to our second proposal, which was mixed use. Half the building would have been for community use, the other half would have been for market-rate housing. In twenty years the market-rate section would be gone and we would then have the whole building for full community use. And they looked at this proposal and they said, “this is great, this is doable.”
There was no communication from that point on.
Do you think the sale of Charas was not really motivated by budgetary necessities, that there was some kind of other agenda?
Absolutely. What has taken place here is a political attack on Charas/El Bohio. If you look at the fact that we have been forced out of the Lower East Side in the last few years, especially after Pagan got into power.
When you say “we,” who exactly do you mean?
The working-class people, poor people, people of color have been forced out of this neighborhood. The last census that was taken shows that there’s still a lot of Latinos down here, but we have to look at reality, and the reality is that most poor people are living doubled and tripled up in the Lower East Side. The rents, of course, everyone knows have gone sky-high. And those that are paying those high rents are also doubled and tripled up, because they can’t afford to pay that kind of rent. And what is that doing? It’s displacing families.
They’re looking to move everybody and anybody out of Manhattan—even those that think that they’re safe. They’re paying their twelve hundred dollars a month, and I ran into them a year and a half ago in Tompkins Square Park when I was out there trying to get them to sign petitions to stop the state from doing away with the rent regulations, and they said, “Hey, I don’t have to worry about that, I pay my twelve hundred a month.” And I said, “Don’t you understand? Don’t you see? You gotta look at the big picture here. And the big picture is that you’re next! Because once they get rid of the working-class people and the poor people of this neighborhood, they’re coming after you!” And you know what—those same people are knocking on my door now wanting to know how I can help them, because their landlord is harassing the hell out of them.
Is there some kind of a legal stipulation that the Charas building has to remain at least partly for nonprofit use?
Yeah, because of the ULURP [unified land use review process] that was put in place, stating that it has to be for community use.
The inflated prices that some of these community properties have been going for suggests that there’s some kind of master plan for redeveloping the neighborhood.
Absolutely. I have no doubt about that. We can save Charas, but if Charas is here and you’re not, then what good is it? I mean, I don’t want to be an organization for a bunch of rich people. I want my people—and when I say my people, I mean the people of the Lower East Side, not just Puerto Ricans, all the people of the Lower East Side. This is our constituency, and this is our home, and we cannot allow this to continue. If they continue to sell all this land, we’re all going to be gone, and we have to stop it now. If there is a plan, it obviously has not been drawn up with any kind of democratic input from the people it’s going to affect.
We can start looking at our Community Board. I’ve been a member of that Community Board 3 for over eight years now, and it’s been very painful. A lot of people ask me, “Armando, why the hell do you stay on that board? Are you a masochist or something?” And I say, no, I stay on the board because I’m a voice and I can try make sure that these folks that are on the board are held accountable one day. Unfortunately, that’s not yet the case. It is a very conservative board, and has voted against the wishes of this community for the past six years, and this is why the Lower East Side has been gentrified in such a speedy way. We cannot continue to recognize this body as representatives of the people of our community. We cannot let the Community Board send a message saying, “We support market-rate housing.”
I guess the argument is that it’ll raise the tax base for the neighborhood and some of the money could be put into housing projects. Wasn’t that what the old Cross-Subsidy Plan was supposed to be about?
The Cross-Subsidy Plan—that’s another joke. This is what we’re stuck with now. We’re stuck with the 80-20 plan, when what we need is one hundred percent affordable housing. And I when I say affordable housing, I really mean affordable, I don’t mean the kind of “affordable” that they’re talking about, an “affordable” apartment for five or six hundred dollars a month and the family is making ten thousand dollars a year and they have three kids—that’s not affordable.
If you fail through the courts and the legal system, you’re prepared for actual physical resistance?
They will have to kill me before they throw me out of that building. And I mean that literally. I am not joking here. I am not one to make threats, and I won’t make any. I don’t even want to look that far down the line, that we will lose. I believe that we will win. But I just want to send a clear message to whoever bought this property that they don’t know what they’ve gotten themselves into and that if they were smart they would pull out. They would pull out right now.