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Spaceship Earth: Buckminster Fuller & CHARAS
…group of dome builders. He hopped in the cab, and that was how he crossed into the world of CHARAS.” CHARAS was an acronym of its founders’ first names: Chino…
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Celebrating Chino García, co-founder of CHARAS/El Bohío
Chino García, co-founder of CHARAS In 2015, Village Preservation conducted an oral history with community organizer Carlos “Chino” García, one of the co-founders of the legendary community organization CHARAS. CHARAS…
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CHARAS / El Bohío Holiday and New Year’s Update
…East 9th Street once housed the popular CHARAS/El Bohío community center. For decades, CHARAS served thousands of visitors each year, hosting all kinds of events, from concerts, recitals and exhibits…
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Three Kings Day Call for Old PS64/CHARAS-El Bohio Community Center
…Blasio to return the Old PS 64/CHARAS El Bohio Community Center to community use. That was just one of many, many grassroots actions over many years regarding the local landmark….
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Old P.S. 64/CHARAS Landmark Anniversary
…& Charas-El Bohio Cultural Center. GVSHP fought hard in support of this designation along with many neighborhood partners, which saved the property from imminent destruction. As part of an all…
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City Hall Rally February 14 to Save Old PS 64/Charas El Bohio
…on the steps of City Hall to save the former Charas/El Bohio Community Center (the old P.S. 64) at 605 East 9th Street, which is in grave danger of being turned into a fake…
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The social and cultural Puerto Rican history of the East Village
…was taken over by several community groups and turned into the CHARAS-El Bohio Community Center. CHARAS was an acronym for the first name of the organization’s five Puerto Rican founders:…
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Hispanic Heritage in the East Village: A Walk through Loisaida
…abandonment, community activists took over the vacant building and turned it into CHARAS-El Bohío community center. CHARAS was the acronym for the first name of the center’s five Puerto Rican…
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The Jones-Shafroth Act Begins Puerto Rican Migration to the Lower East Side
…was quickly utilized by neighborhood groups, first the urban homesteading group Adopt-A-Building, and later Charas. Charas was formed by five Puerto Rican men in the 1960’s as a positive force…
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Old P.S. 64 on the L.E.S. — Immigrant School Innovator and Latinx Culture Leader
…and work to reacquire old P.S. 64/CHARAS and return it to community use. Save Old P.S. 64/CHARAS Click here to tell Mayor de Blasio to live up to his campaign…
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Historic Schools of Greenwich Village and the East Village Still Changing Minds
…CHARAS (formerly P.S. 64), 605 East 9th Street Although it was locked in a legal battle for over 20 years, former P.S. 64, better known as CHARAS or El Bohío,…
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What’s Up With that Rotting School on East 9th Street?
…After the CB3 vote on Tuesday at its monthly meeting, CHARAS co-founder Chino Garcia was smiling. (The name CHARAS comes from initials of his name along with those of his…
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A Landmark’s Long Fight for Life
The former Public School 64, which once housed the CHARAS community and cultural center, was designed by master school architect C.B.J. Snyder in the French Renaissance Revival style in 1904-06….
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C.B.J. Snyder and P.S. 64
…Beginning in 1979, another existing local group, CHARAS, occupied the western wing and theater of the school building. CHARAS and Adopt-A-Building formed a new corporation, El Bohío (a word that…
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Eight Abandoned East Village Buildings’ Second Acts As Beacons of Culture
…1905. Like PS122, by the 1970s Public School 64 had been abandoned, and in 1977, a coalition of community groups founded the CHARAS-El Bohio Community Center at this location. CHARAS,…
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A Victory for a Once (And Future?) Community Center, an Embattled Landmark
…issued the permits in the first place is a mystery.) The crowd gathered on East Ninth Street, with the broken windows and permanent scaffolding of P.S. 64 behind them. CHARAS/El…
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Could Redevelopment Finally Be Moving Forward at P.S. 64?
…as the CHARAS-El Bohio community center for two decades, until it was sold by the Giuliani administration to a private developer in 1998. Since 2001, when developer Gregg Singer succeeded…
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Significant Latinx History Sites in the Village
…poetry, and so much more. Learn more about the building on our East Village Building Blocks site. Former CHARAS-El Bohio/ Old P.S. 64 This now-abandoned but still standing structure used…
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Charles Snyder’s Historic Schools in the East Village
The distinctive H plan of many NYC schools that Snyder designed, here the former P.S. 64/CHARAS building. Each year, New York City’s 1 million public school students return to school…
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The Poets & Activists of Loisaida
…move in a different direction. They joined together to form CHARAS, which became a hub of community activity at 350 East 10th Street/605 East 9th Street. The building was originally…
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For Downtown’s Unsung Heroes: Love, Passion, and a Party
…organizer who co-founded CHARAS, particularly noted for its innovative work fostering community-based urban ecology, arts and culture. Charas/El Bohio, at the former P.S. 64, was a vibrant community arts and…
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A Tale of Four Schools — Program Thursday
…great community resources such as these and facilitate their adaptive reuse, and what can we still learn from Snyder’s century-old philosophies? PS 64, the site of Charas, as it stands…
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Development dispute over P.S. 64 in the East Village continues, two decades later
…the Charas-El Bohio Community and Cultural Center, to a developer, despite opposition from the building’s occupants and the surrounding community. The decision and the building remain mired in controversy to this day….
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A Complete Guide to the Charles B.J. Snyder Schools in Our Neighborhoods
…the eastern stretches of the East Village, this building was taken over by several community groups and turned into the CHARAS-El Bohio Community Center. CHARAS was an acronym for the…
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Touring the Gardens of the East Village
…abandoned lot, though it quickly transformed through the ambitious efforts of CHARAS, the organization that revitalized their neighborhood through education and community building, often out of their squatted community center,…
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2014 Year In Review: GVSHP Programs
…will be available for purchase and signing. Town Hall to Save Charas / PS 64 A rally to save the historic building and former community center Monday, November 17 6:30…
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‘Alternative Facts’: A Familiar Theme When Fighting Overdevelopment
…courtesy of EV Grieve. Alternative Fact: The owner of the former PS. 64/Charas/El Bohio Community Center in the East Village wants to revive the long-shuttered building by turning it into…
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Twenty Years Later, A Community Center is Still Empty
Copy of the Memorandum of Sale dated July 20, 1998 This Friday, July 20, marks the 20th anniversary of the controversial auction of the former P.S. 64/CHARAS-El Bohio Community and Cultural…
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East Village “Winter Flowers” — Where Will They Bloom Again?
…common in that era, members of the Latino group CHARAS cleared out truckloads of refuse. Working with Buckminster Fuller, they built a geodesic dome in the open “plaza” and began…
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East Village Activist History on Display at Loisaida
…highlights the work of collectives such as CHARAS, PAD/D, REPOhistory, Paper Tiger TV, ABC NO Rio and the dedicated artists/organizers that have created posters, banners, buttons, newsletters and films that…
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Sprouting from the Ashes: Radical Community Gardening in the East Village and Lower East Side
…is a vital arena for theater, dance, music, art and social gatherings. In 2003, La Plaza was renamed in memory of Armando Perez, a CHARAS founder and former District Leader…
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History’s Mysteries: Ghost Sign on East 6th Street
…its predecessor the old P.S. 64, Charas/El Bohio Cultural Center at 605 East 9th Street) which was built between 1951 and 1954 as J.H.S. 71. Dozens of tenements, business and…
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Back To School
…47 is one of many significant historic educational sites in the neighborhood, such as P.S. 64/Charas-El Bohio and the Children’s Aid Society homes for boys and girls. If you would…
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An Old Garden Grows Again
…Chicago Mural Group, and learn more in the book “On the Wall: Four Decades of Community Murals in New York City” See the mural sponsored by Charas and Adopt a…
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The Skidmore House becomes a landmark
…and exposed to the elements and in disrepair (a condition we currently grapple with at the landmarked former PS 64 /CHARAS on East 9th & 10th streets.) By 2010, the building was…
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C.B.J. Snyder and the East Village
We have written a number of times about the former P.S. 64/ CHARAS-El Bohio Community and Cultural Center and our efforts to save the landmarked building. The beloved historic structure was built…
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Former Schools of Greenwich Village and the East Village
…in our neighborhoods that have now taken on new lives, including the former P.S. 64/CHARAS-El Bohio Community Center at 605 East 9th Street, former Grammar School 36/Loisaida Center at 710…
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Celebrating Hispanic Heritage
…history here. Garcia was an activist and founding member of the CHARAS-El Bohio Cultural Center. Click here to read more about the 400+ years of Hispanic history in our neighborhoods….
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Handouts to Big Real Estate, and a Festivus for the Rest of Us!
…12, 2017 statement that the City would take steps to return the CHARAS-El Bohio to the community. The former St. Denis has now made way for new commercial development. Instead…
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The Original ‘Day’s End:’ Gordon-Matta Clark’s “Anarchitecture” on Pier 52
…buildings. However, the small amphitheater at La Plaza Cultural that Matta-Clark helped create with CHARAS still stands today. Artist David Hammons remembered the original Day’s End when looking out on…
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