Otways evicted from St. Mark’s Theatre 80, still praying ‘angels’ will save building from sale

BY LINCOLN ANDERSON | Updated April 10, 12:01 a.m.: Lorcan and Genie Otway left St. Mark’s Theatre 80 on Wednesday. It wasn’t clear if they’ll ever be allowed back inside the place again. Nevertheless, they continue to fight on to try to keep the remarkable building and the unique and authentic cultural, community and activist space that they created there.

They still have two weeks left to raise more funds to pay off their full $12 million debt owed to a lender, Maverick Real Estate Partners. So far, they have commitments to cover more than half of the debt, but still need several more million dollars. An auction of the property is slated for May 5. The Otways — who still own the building — are desperately trying to raise the needed cash by the deadline. They continue to hope for a miracle.

In a major, last-minute boost to their cause, last week, a new nonprofit — Historic 80 St. Mark’s — was approved to accept tax-deductible donations. That hopefully will encourage more deep-pocketed, culture-loving “angels” to help the Otways from losing the place.

A “Save Theatre 80” petition on change.org, started by Kenny Toglia of the Guardians of Loisaida, had so far garnered more than 6,600 signatures as of April 6.

The Guardians are also asking people to write Governor Kathy Hochul and urge her to intervene and help save the building from being sold.

If the Otways manage to retain the building, Lorcan said the plan is for it to become a nonprofit venue that he would program, and that he and Genie would continue to be able to live there.

An eviction from one’s longtime home is always a traumatic experience. It doesn’t get any easier as the years go by and one advances in age. Lorcan is 70 and Genie is 69. He’s lived there since he was 9, helping his father as a young kid to scoop out the basement’s dirt floor to deepen the theater.

Around 1 p.m., a U-Haul truck was parked across the street. It was being loaded with whatever valued possessions the Otways had hurriedly been able to pull together. Genie walked out of the building carrying a stack of ancient-looking paintings. She held them face down. Since they were unframed canvases, they probably weren’t the portraits of some of the Anglo-Irish Otway barons from Templederry in the old country that lined one wall in the theater’s lobby. She said she had been focusing on saving things like family photos, things that hold special meaning for them.

Meanwhile, Lorcan was over at the mini storage at Second Street and Second Avenue, struggling to see what could be crammed into the limited space.

A court-appointed bankruptcy trustee, a woman with white hair and wearing a mid-length black leather coat, was on the scene. Close by her side was a tall, imposing-looking man. It wasn’t clear if he was the federal marshal who had been expected to enforce the Otways’ eviction. Maybe he was just “the muscle,” there to protect the trustee. Their relationship wasn’t clear. He would not identify himself to a reporter.

When the reporter tried to open the door to the theater’s darkened William Barnacle Tavern, the man curtly warned, “You can’t go in there.” The door was locked shut anyway.

A locksmith had been there a bit earlier to install a new lock on the theater’s front door.

Gathered outside on the sidewalk in front were a small group of friends there to offer support. Among them was Eric Rassi, a former East Village squatter activist who ran for state Senate last year on a “pro-health choice” platform.

“It’s just another attack by the political machine, as far as I’m concerned,” he declared of the iconic theater couple’s eviction from their longtime home and business. “They forced people to close for a year [during the pandemic] but they didn’t stop finance companies from collecting money that people were prohibited from earning. This was a political decision to destroy institutions — and there are many, many others.” He blamed “Hochul, de Blasio — every single one of ’em.”

Linda Justice, who has lived in the neighborhood since 1977, noted that she had her first play reading there at the “Naked Angels” free Monday night series just two months ago.

Debbie Lee, who produced the late Michael Shenker’s “The Squatters’ Opera” at Theatre 80 the weekend right before the pandemic officially was declared, was also among the small group.

“I’m going to take the cat, babysit it,” she said, “let her chill out rather than let her be toted around.”

The Otways’ 18-year-old, black feline, Pyewacket — named after a “familiar spirit” of an accused 17th-century English witch — was anxiously meowing inside her carrying case on the sidewalk.

While Pyewacket will have a place to stay, at least for now, where the Otways will go isn’t as clear. Some of the friends outside the theater were offering to put the couple up for a while.

Speaking by cell phone later from an East Village cafe around 6:30 p.m., where he was warming up with some tea after unloading the truck in the raw, rainy weather, Lorcan said they have something of a plan. Friends from Ireland will probably put them up at the St. Mark’s Hotel for at least one night, after which the Otways hope to find a small place near the theater, so that they can “keep the fight up.”

Also among the handful of people outside were a group of young people in their 20s and early 30s. As they started to talk about what the Otways and the social and cultural space they created meant to them, Kathleen Finch, a bartender there for the last four years, became watery-eyed. She’s originally from Texas.

“It’s quite literally my second home,” she said. “Genie and Lorcan are like my second parents. I’m here more days than not.”

“I feel like I’m losing a second home,” echoed Sam Agnew, a member of a grindcore rock band. “I’ve been coming here since 2013, since I was old enough to drink.”

He noted that Food Not Bombs, a volunteer group that provides free vegan and vegetarian meals, met in the building.

For Ena Lee, 27, an organizer who grew up nearby, St. Mark’s Theatre 80 has always been a neighborhood touchstone. At one point, she worked there.

“I used to walk with my dad down this block, past this building and he would tell me how Leon Trotsky lived on the second floor,” she said. “Democratic Socialists used to meet here.

“This was a spot where anything could happen. This was a space where anybody could come by. When we’re talking about gentrification, this was one of the places that young activists like us could draft their dreams.

“I grew up on 14th Street. This is like the epicenter of my life,” she said. “This is like 400 years of history. This is where the creek would run, and the Lenape would fish in the creek. The creek stones are in the basement. There are bullet holes in the wall here. This used to be a speakeasy — there’s an underground tunnel.”

Ena Lee said the group of Millennials will do everything they can to help the Otways. One thing on the immediate agenda is to do a fundraiser to pay for their storage space.

“They don’t have children,” she said. “We are their children — and we will take care of them. We’re not going to give up without a fight. We’re preserving their dignity — that’s the most important point.”

Lorcan Otway said he’s immensely grateful for assistance in their fight by the city’s Department of Cultural Affairs and, specifically, its commissioner, Laurie Cumbo, and also the Internal Revenue Service, which has a division to help theaters. The I.R.S. waived the 180-day waiting period for Theatre 80’s new nonprofit to be allowed to accept tax-deductible donations. Basically, the request was made to the I.R.S. last Thursday — and was approved Friday.

“The two white knights in this case,” he said, “were the Department of Cultural Affairs and, the surprise white knight, the I.R.S.”

Lorcan noted he always wanted to keep the place commercial and independent, loath to let a nonprofit board of directors influence his choices on programming. But now, there’s no choice.

While Rassi referred to a crippling one-year lockdown during the pandemic, Otway noted that, in the case of theaters, it was actually two years that business was negatively impacted. At major financial expense, during COVID — wanting to comply with social-distancing regulations — he yanked out the theater’s seats to convert it into a cabaret, sporting tables and much less seating.

But before they could really get the cabaret rolling, the bankruptcy trustee forbade them from holding events to raise revenue. During the past year, the Otways were prohibited, for example, from leasing out the place for a film shoot that would have netted them a sorely neeeded $50,000.

And now they literally have no money.

“Our bank accounts have been seized,” Lorcan said.

On top of everything, a former commercial tenant, Foxface sandwich shop, is suing them. The litigation charges, among other things, that Foxface had an exclusive right to serve food in the place, but that the Otways violated this.

Calling it “a frivolous lawsuit,” Lorcan shrugged that Foxface objected that he and Genie served shepherd’s pie during late-night hours. Foxface’s Ori Kushnir declined to comment for this article.

Lorcan said he’s not interested in a proposed settlement offer.

“Genie and I are weighing what our countersuit will be,” he said.