Submitted by Loveroffinerthings t3_10i5v41 in RhodeIsland
Keep seeing stuff on social media about AS220 being some sort of fake social justice org by the family that has been threatening to open a restaurant for about 3 years now. Anyone got better info than watching edited Instagram stories?
Lol, they do seem to be running a grift, always asking for money to open a business, then coming up with reasons why it won’t work. No shade, but it seems odd with so many closed spaces, they could find something.
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I saw this morning’s rant and thought the exact same thing. Then I thought “didn’t I unfollow these characters?”
AS220 is far from the community arts organization it started as. Now it’s worth about $20 million because owns a bunch of buildings downtown tax free and is mostly acts as a full time corporate landlord.
glad i'm not the only one that noticed the change in AS220.
Funny, AS220 offers spaces below market rate to artists.
For an example, see https://as220.org/live-work-vacancy-at-empire-street-2/
Other landlords aren't interested in the cultural life of the city. But AS220 bought and rehabbed a bunch of buildings long before anyone else was interested.
I was referring more to them being a commercial landlord, renting to a bunch of restaurants and other businesses downtown.
When AS220 bought their buildings they made sure not to price out / dislocate the small businesses on street level. Notice the small barbershop on Empire street that has been there forever and Clark the Locksmith on Washington street. They also rent live/work spaces to qualified artists WAY below market rents adding greatly to economic diversity of who lives downtown. In addition ANY artists who asks for a spot on the waiting list can have a show at their gallery, artists who probably would not have a chance of showing at a for profit / commercial gallery. They have to fund this somehow, and some of that comes from the fancy restaurants they rent to on street level at what I guess are market rates.
>When AS220 bought their buildings they made sure not to price out / dislocate the small businesses on street level.
Unless it's the Satin Doll.
Below market rents is great. But if we're going to shit on Brown for not paying close to full freight on property taxes, I don't see why AS220 should get a pass for it.
I believe the Satin Doll went out of business long before AS220 bought that building.
It was open until the building was sold. FWIW, I think the owner of the club partially owned the building when he sold in 2015. I don't know why they gave up on the plan for that space but I think they ended up flipping the building to Durk's within a few years.
So, the owner of the club sold his own building or fraction of, got his $$ and you're blaming AS220 for his dislocation? OK.
I was pointing out that they haven't kept every business open. Can't help but notice you skipped right past my point about the property taxes though
My understanding (I'm not a tax expert) is that when a non profit owns a building (Brown or AS220) and rents out that building (or a portion of) to a for profit business such as a restaurant, that property is taxed at the normal commercial rate.
I’m not saying AS220 doesn’t still do good work - they certainly do. They’re just not as grass roots and altruistic as the once were.
If you watch the video the guy from Bintimani posted, he’s main issue is that AS220 treated them like a business. He says AS220 has a responsibility to help marginalized communities, and then deciding not to host Bintimani pop-ups anymore is a direct act of aggression against a oppressed communities by the “non-profit industrial complex”
I’m really just pointing out how much AS220 has changed and that people shouldn’t expect the same level of altruism they once had.
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There are lots of nonprofits that do this, it’s a good hedge against lean times. If they stopped being a space for art, and marginalized communities, I could see the “change”, but I haven’t seen anything like that.
I lived in the same Boston neighborhood as the first Bintimani. Then saw they moved to a different neighborhood with a more diverse population, which made sense. Then Boston prices skyrocketed and they, like we, decide to pack up and move to Providence.
Since then, I can’t believe they haven’t had a single chance to open a physical location. I can’t see how, if it’s a grift, it’s working, but man I can’t see them opening anything ever.
The grift is always asking for money, community fundraising, putting out there that they’ve raised tens of thousands of dollars for a new place, but a new place never comes. I’ve seen like 10 new places open in PVD/Cranston that are small low key places, not sure who would be requiring tens of thousands down to open a space. I have no allegiance with AS220 and only know them as a supportive community space for BIPOC and LBGQT community members, not sure what they would do to a restaurant moving into their space for the owner of Bintimani to be so hateful towards them.
What happened in Boston was a bit more complicated. They were evicted for non-payment of rent
recommend revisiting that original post on IG to hear what the youth of AS220 have to say.
On which page? On Bitimani or AS220 page?
I think it's the comments on this IG post. Seems like a lot of AS220 peeps have weighed in: https://www.instagram.com/p/Cnrjbm2BY5R/
Ohhhh it got spicy! Like I’ve said, this dude from Bitimani seems like a grifter. He doesn’t get his way and then blames someone else. The one person saying they took forever to serve food, and didn’t clean up seems to be the reason they didn’t want to collab anymore. Happy that the youth have come to bat for AS220.
MonicaPVD t1_j5cjcn5 wrote
"If you run into a jerk in the morning, you run into a jerk. If you run into jerks all day, you're the jerk."
The guy from Bintimani has been running into jerks for years.