Monday, March 21, 2011

Letter from Steve: Repossession of property at 285 E 3rd St.

A Gathering of the Tribes

(where I'm doing my first solo show next month)


Say folks,

Here's the situation, read it and weep: NY Times Article

Because of the situation I find myself in, and I'm certainly not going to get my eyesight back anytime soon, I need your help.

Since selling this building to Lorraine Zhang, I have found that she has no idea how to manage this property here in NYC.  She seems to have found herself in an awful lot of debt.  

With your help, I was hoping you might know anyone with deep pockets or charitable organizations that might help me with repossessing the building to place it under new management.  

I've owned the building for over 40 years and in the process, lost my eyesight, and currently have nobody around to manage the property.  I'll need someone to manage the property properly.

If you know anyone that might be able to help with this current crisis here, please forward this email to them.

For the last 20 years, for the most part I, Steve Cannon, have been financing Tribes myself.  2/3 on my own, and 1/3 funding

The total loss in running Tribes since opening is well over a million dollars, if not more.  Since Lorraine has proven incapable of keeping up with the bills of the property (tax, mortgage, bills, etc.), she finds that she's had to put it on the market.

What I'd like to do is to rent the other spaces out to artists.  Have them pay a maintenance fee...  And find a philanthropist or charity to pay off the mortgage.  I need your help in this search and if you know someone who can help, let me know. The discrepancy between rich and poor is ever widening in the nation, and artists are among the people who suffer most. For over 20 years, Tribes has sought to help emergent and established artists pursue their calling in the arts, and I should like to keep it that way.

If you have any questions, please give me a call:  212-674-8262

Please read the article line by line carefully.

And here's another article to consider as well:

For more info about Tribes, check out www.tribes.org. We're also on Flickr, Youtube, Twitter and Facebook.   
Love you madly,
Steve

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