RSVP (max. capacity 20 guests)

Rant Night is an invitation for us all to come and air our grievances about housing and inequality in New York City.  Speakers will be given five minutes to vent, rage, pontificate, expound, grieve, ‘splain, whine, excoriate, ridicule, protest, educate, or simply complain about the overwhelming difficulties of staying in the city.  Ranters will not be interrupted or challenged during their rant, but if you want to rant about a rant, that’s also fine.  Please help us close out MONTH2MONTH with a cathartic evening of public speaking. You're welcome. RSVP required to rant, but the livestream will be open to all.

RSVP (max. capacity 20 guests)

The Center for NYC Neighborhoods is a non-profit that protects and promotes affordable homeownership in the five boroughs. "Who Stole the House" is a murder mystery event where the crime centers around the theft of a Brooklyn home by a faceless LLC. Using real-life examples from our work, “Who Stole The House?” will engage the audience around the epidemic of homeowner scams by LLCs that target vulnerable residents, and are often centered in hot real estate markets. These scams are on the rise in neighborhoods like Crown Heights, Bedford-Stuyvesant and East New York.

RSVP (max. capacity 20 guests)

"Civilized people don't use weapons at the dinner table."
-Confucius (highly paraphrased)

In 2014, artist Aisha Cousins conducted two rounds of a performance art score called "Civilized People: Knife Collection Drive" as a way of gathering public feedback for an opera that looked at gentrification through the lens of black trickster folk tales. With the help of The Laundromat Project and Heather Hart's Bartertown, she engaged passersby in Bedford-Stuyvesant and Dumbo (two communities at opposite ends of NYC's gentrification timeline) in exploring the subjective nature of the concept of "civilization" by asking them to turn in their forks and (dinner) knives in exchange for cookbooks featuring non-violent eating methods like chop sticks, injera, and fufu.

The last page of these cookbooks encouraged participants to use the cookbooks as a tool to create dinner parties where neighbors gather to discuss how the definition of "civilized" varies from culture to culture, as well as to consider this question: "Is it civilized to ask residents of a community you're moving into to change because they do things differently from you?" Join us as we gather to act out this last portion of Cousins' score. 

Please bring a dish for 4-8 people that can be eaten without forks or knives.

RSVP (max. capacity 30 guests)

Seung-Min Lee will host an Open House workshop for real estate agents and their aspiring clients that will culminate in a karaoke consciousness raising party.

RSVP (max. capacity 20 guests)

Displacement is often the end of the narrative of gentrification. But what happens next for the people involved? Artist Kameelah Janan Rasheed will lead a discussion group exploring where displaced people go when they are priced out of a neighborhood, what options they may have, and why their post-eviction trajectory is rarely included in discussions of displacement. Short readings on the subject will be announced ahead of time to serve as a starting point for discussion.

RSVP (max. capacity 20 guests)

Doormen are both people with demanding jobs and symbols of prestige and discretion. As gatekeepers of private spaces they have knowledge of more of their residents’ activities than anyone would care to admit. We have invited a few doormen to join the public for a catered dinner to share in their stories about mediating the public and private. We know they cannot share too many details about their jobs, but we hope to learn something about privilege, labor and access from their unique perspective at the ground floor. Special guests include: Ariel Acevedo, Hector Herrera and Toavorus (Clyde) Freeman.

RSVP (max. capacity 20 guests)

Can you afford a pet? Do you spend too much on drinks at happy hour? Is your rent just too damn high (for your budget)? In the age of crowdsourced movies, encyclopedias, and debt, writers Shane Ferro and Jillian Steinhauer offer you free, informal financial advisory services. Neither may be entirely qualified to give such advice, but they have both been living successfully in New York City for nearly a decade—a sure sign of something. Come prepared to be honest in confronting the details of how much you make, how much you spend, and how to be your best financial self.

RSVP (max. capacity 30 guests)

Join More Art for a night of experimental improvisational comedy featuring Ana Fabrega, Lorelei Ramirez, Sean J Patrick Carney and Amy Zimmer. Together, they will attempt to answer the unanswerable: How the hell did they afford that loft apartment on Friends? Who pays Aziz Ansari's rent on Master of None? Does Lena Dunham think that boys don't live in Brooklyn?

RSVP (max. capacity 15 guests)

We recognize that in our privatized economy, housing has become an asset not only for developers but for all lease holders with extra space to help offset the dramatic recent increases in rent city-wide. We would like to offer a space for discussing how ownership and property decisions might involve more shared decision making beyond individual owners and their representatives to include more stakeholders from communities on the receiving end of these actions.  Is displacement inevitable, or is it possible to work together to achieve sustainable and stable communities? We aim to create a space for discussing how that might happen. Special guests include: Asher Edelman from Artemus, an art leasing company, and Edelman Arts, Stefani Pace from Space in the City, Arun Sundararajan, professor at NYU and authour of "The Sharing Economy: The End of Employment and the Rise of Crowd-Based Capitalism" (2016) and a New York resident who values his internet anonymity with decades of experience working in banking, finance, and real estate development.

RSVP (max. capacity 20 guests)

MONTH2MONTH invites the public to join experts on public housing policy in New York City for a community dinner in a luxury apartment. In this cordial setting we hope to bypass some of the usual political posturing of panel discussions or the contentiousness of community board meetings. Join us for a lively, open-ended conversation about the ways public policy affects housing in NYC.  Can we talk about DeBlasio’s Affordable New York plan? The controversial 421(a) tax break for developers to build affordable apartments that just ran out?  AirBNB’s effect on the rental market? The themed dinner service will reflect back on the ways dining and culinary traditions reflect and shape ideas of public and private service. Special guests include: Neil deMause from the Village Voice, Adeola Enigbokan, artist and housing activist, and Heidi Schmidt, director of Government Relation, Dept. Homeless Services.

RSVP (max. capacity 20 guests)

Does the earth belong to everyone, or only people with significant amounts of money? Is housing a right or a privilege? When we think of corporations or rich people carving up sections of the moon it seems outrageous. Why have we accepted it on our home planet? Please join co-organizers William Powhida and Jennifer Dalton for a opening discussion about the way private property laws fundamentally structure our society. Refreshments will be served. 

RSVP (max. capacity 30 guests)

Sometimes our hands get tired of fingerpointing. Brooklyn Hi-Art Machine (Oasa DuVerney and Mildred Beltre) will invite visitors to publicly confess their own sins of gentrification, large or small, in order to explore their complacency and complicity in the citywide struggle for "affordable" housing and the wholesale displacement of low-income New Yorkers.

All Gentrifiers Anonymous are strongly encouraged to participate.

RSVP (max. capacity 20 guests)

Sharon Butler invites anyone with $50 to invest in a cooperative Stock Club for the 99%. Her interest in financial matters is as amateur rather than professional, hence the collaborative nature of the investment group. Members will pool information and expertise to select stocks in which to invest their pooled funds. One year later-- or upon majority vote--the portfolio will be liquidated and collective gains or losses realized.

The $50 Stock Club addresses the reality that most ordinary Americans do not directly invest in the stock market. Though the middle class is often told by financial experts we should invest in stocks, most households lack the savings or financial savvy to do so and almost half of American households have no investments in the stock market at all. In the wake of the recent $1.5 billion Powerball jackpot, for which many otherwise sane people bought dozens of tickets, Butler’s club can be seen as a far safer bet.

Also inspired by the increasing interest in contemporary art as an investment commodity by those in the financial industry, Butler may be hinting that artists are just as likely to choose solid stocks as financial wizards are to choose artists of lasting importance.

The public is invited to come learn a little more about the art of investing on a budget!

RSVP (max. capacity 30 guests)

Join Fusion writer Felix Salmon for an evening of champagne and the economics of the the New York housing market at MONTH2MONTH’s ‘luxury’ apartment in Gramercy Park. Salmon, a well-known writer on the economies of nearly everything, will share his expertise in the connoisseurship of champagne and residences among New York’s high-priced society. Co-hosted by MONTH2MONTH organizers William Powhida and Jennifer Dalton. Hosted at the live/work space of David Ling, Architect.

RSVP (max. capacity 20 guests)

Together with housing rights actors of change, artist and activist Betty Yu will lead an interactive event where participants imagine a more equitable city. Conversations will help shift the narrative from individual guilt and blame to systemic housing problems based on real estate speculation and profit. 

RSVP

Join us for a Housewarming Party in celebration of MONTH2MONTH, and help us welcome our first residents to their temporary home. No need to bring a gift.