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Theater and Bookstore Divorce, Not Amicably
Crystal Field, the artistic director of the 35-year-old theater, on First Avenue between East Ninth and 10th Streets, says she wants the bookstore out by the end of March. She said that a few months ago she told the bookstore it would have to leave because the space was needed for the theater’s patrons. She said that in the past week she had received messages that she attributed to the shop or its sympathizers. “They spray painted our building,†she said. “They put funny notes under our door. People have made harassing phone calls.†The bookstore workers denied being behind those incidents and told a different story about the impending move. They said that Ms. Field warned that they would be ousted if they complained to the police about a confrontation inside the lobby between a bookstore volunteer and a theater member. Demian Schroeder, a carpenter who helps run the bookstore, says that on the evening of Feb. 4, Primy Rivera, an actor in the theater company with whom he has had disagreements, entered the lobby with another man. An argument began between the three and escalated to violence. Mr. Schroeder said that Jonathan Worthley, a freelance theater worker, intervened on his behalf. In a criminal court complaint, Mr. Worthley accused Mr. Rivera of hitting him with a blow that left him with two black eyes and a swollen nose. The complaint also accused Mr. Rivera of punching Mr. Schroeder and trying to choke Mr. Worthley. The next day, Mr. Schroeder said, he went to Ms. Field. “We wanted some kind of mediation that corresponded with the values both our organizations recognize,†he said. “They weren’t interested.†Ms. Field said that she did not try to stop Mr. Schroeder from going to the authorities. “I think it’s funny and strange that the anarchists would go to the police,†she said. Mr. Schroeder said he and Mr. Worthley went to the police on Feb. 8. On Feb. 9, Mr. Rivera was charged with two counts of third-degree assault, a misdemeanor. Mr. Rivera said he would not discuss the accusations because it was an open case. No matter which account prevails, the split suggests that the most bitter breakups take place between parties that were once warm partners. At first glance, the theater and the bookstore seem like natural allies. Both draw inspiration from the neighborhood’s historic interest in radical politics and art. And both are seeking to survive a gentrification that has made existence difficult for nonconformist sorts. On Wednesday night, Mr. Schroeder and other volunteers sat inside the bookstore, where “Mutiny: A Paper of Anarchist Ideas and Actions,†from Australia, was displayed near a pamphlet called “Digger Tracts 1649-50,†about a utopian group of agrarians that emerged out of the First English Civil War. A lending library included copies of “The Press†by A.J. Liebling and “The Jungle†by Upton Sinclair. Mayday began renting about 300 square feet of the lobby for $500 a month in 2001, after a similar shop, Blackout Books, was cleared by a landlord from an Avenue B storefront to make way for a group of Hare Krishnas. Some of those involved with Blackout Books went on to help start Mayday. Anarchist or countercultural bookstores have long been a fixture in the neighborhood. Before Blackout, there was Sabotage Books, and before that there was the Anarchist Switchboard on East Ninth Street. Some trace the local origins of such shops to the early 1960s, when Ed Sanders, a member of the Fugs, an East Village band known for radical politics, opened the Peace Eye Bookstore on Avenue A. “We’re being driven out,†said Mr. Schroeder, who added that the store had not yet lined up a new home. “We’re a vestige of the old radical East Village community, which is being destroyed.†|
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