The Real Estate Show

On New Year's Day in 1980, a group of artists broke into a vacant, city-owned building at 123 Delancey Street to launch an exhibition called The Real Estate Show. They sought to protest the city's housing policies, which at the time were marked by widespread abandonment and aggressive developer speculation. The show lasted only one day before police padlocked the storefront and confiscated the artwork, yet this brief occupation triggered a series of negotiations with city officials. These talks ultimately secured the artists a permanent space nearby at 156 Rivington Street. That new venue adopted a name salvaged from a weathered sign that once read Abogado Con Notario, which had lost so many letters that it simply became known as ABC No Rio.