Silent Barn space may go to Educated Little Monsters
(Night Mayor at Secret Project Robot, photo via buhlexin)
When Silent Barn announced they were closing (and regularly since then), they urged people to donate to Educated Little Monsters (ELM), “a music and arts group serving Bushwick youth whose communities are severely impacted by gentrification. ELM has been running classes and programming out of Silent Barn since 2014 and is now fundraising to launch a new all-ages space with their community partners.”
ELM’s own statement on the situation talks about using the money to find a new space. Here’s an excerpt:
It was never comfortable or easy to build inside the largely white, transplant-run DIY space that is Silent Barn, but against all odds it has become a headquarters for our whole team of mentors, artists, and youth to build and grow together. With the support of our community partners Color Scenes, Bushwick Vendors Market, and Bushwick Street Art—who share leadership with ELM and have always provided resources and income to help stabilize the program—we broke down barriers in Silent Barn, and were finally beginning to feel like it could be home.
So to learn that Silent Barn is shutting down in less than two months, closing its doors on April 30th, is beyond devastating. The disappointment is compounded by the fact that we’ve always had to operate under the looming threat of losing space to gentrification. But we also know that through this setback we will not only survive—we will thrive. ELM was founded in resistance to displacement, but has been kept alive by the resilience of our founder and teaching team—and above all by the resilience of our powerful, unstoppable young people.
It is because of our youth that we are diving directly into a massive fundraiser, beyond the scope of anything we’ve attempted before, to raise $50,000 by May 1st. We are dreaming wildly because we owe it to our youth, and because we will not let this program be without a space—a space that will be ours, that we cannot be pushed out of, with a long-term lease that protects us from the skyrocketing rents of our gentrifying neighborhood. We need to guarantee our youth security in a way that Silent Barn couldn’t, despite their best efforts and intentions. We need a real, sustainable home. And to achieve this, we need to build a base of long term members who sign up to give recurring donations so we can avoid the debilitating cycle of emergency crowdfunding.
With $50,000, we will open a new space for the youth program, one that will also function as an all-ages venue and event space in collaboration with its community partners Color Scenes, Bushwick Street Art, and The Lab Recording Studio.
Read their full statement and learn how to donate HERE, but note the new developments coming out of tonight’s Night Mayor meetings at Silent Barn and Secret Project Robot….
Jazo Brooklyn of Educated Little Monsters is in talks to take over lease of former Silent Barn @RLEspinal @ArielPalitz pic.twitter.com/Hxq1yFFenK
— Madina Touré (@madinatoure) March 26, 2018
BREAKING: Head of @ELMYouthGroup announces plans to buy and preserve @TheSilentBarn building as multipurpose #DIY venue and Educational Center for Bushwick Youth.
More details to follow. @brooklynvegan @TimeOutNewYork pic.twitter.com/30uGdQ0xeS
— Bushwick Daily (@BushwickDaily) March 27, 2018
https://twitter.com/noyinzoe/status/978413682421100544
Council Member @RLEspinal and Nightlife Mayor @ArielPalitz tour Silent Barn, a legal DIY venue soon to be taken over by native Bishwick kids for their creative community space. pic.twitter.com/ZB1SEdKbbP
— New York City Council (@NYCCouncil) March 27, 2018
This is obviously preliminary, but promising! Stay tuned for more details as they emerge, and check out a few more tweets recapping tonight’s meeting below:
https://twitter.com/noyinzoe/status/978414464667127808
.@ArielPalitz says she plans to just listen to people and hear them out with respect to key nightlife issues pic.twitter.com/ZkxeXefZh7
— Madina Touré (@madinatoure) March 26, 2018
.@ArielPalitz, the first-ever nightlife mayor, talks DIY spaces pic.twitter.com/sdyULain1o
— Madina Touré (@madinatoure) March 26, 2018
.@ArielPalitz is speaking at Secret Project Robot in Bushwick shortly pic.twitter.com/HFWaJHzNo5
— Madina Touré (@madinatoure) March 26, 2018
.@ArielPalitz: “Originally I did need some extra clarification on DIY… b/c me growing up in NY—that was just like an underground collective community space. It didn’t really have this new title…I understand what is is, I’ve lived it, I’ve breathed it, I’ve run it myself.”
— Madina Touré (@madinatoure) March 26, 2018
Jazo Brooklyn, who was born in Puerto Rico and grew up in Brooklyn, says she founded Education Little Monsters to combat gentrification pic.twitter.com/Nk29YoPT2f
— Madina Touré (@madinatoure) March 26, 2018
Brian Polite of Afro Mosaic Soul says nightlife is going underground because people can't afford legal spaces. Ppl get priced out. pic.twitter.com/i0djd0uwr4
— Madina Touré (@madinatoure) March 27, 2018
Jazo Brooklyn stresses the importance of people in the community leading the way pic.twitter.com/gB6dELUDFu
— Madina Touré (@madinatoure) March 27, 2018
.@RLEspinal notes that the two commissioners in the state Liquor Authority are not from New York City. He says there's one vacant seat and hopes they can get someone from NYC into the position. Says it'd be nice to have a woman in the position.
— Madina Touré (@madinatoure) March 27, 2018
.@RLEspinal encourages people in nightlife industry to register to vote, says local elections are even more important than national elections
— Madina Touré (@madinatoure) March 26, 2018
https://twitter.com/noyinzoe/status/978428721286860800