An Abbie Hoffman-founded counterculture group fought for years to keep their NOHO headquarters – but soon gym rats will be the ones throwing punches in the activists’ former brick home.
A three-level boxing gym is set to move into the former Youth International Party’s home – known as Number 9 at 9 Bleecker Street.
The building was once a haven for the Yippies, a group of underground activists and political pranksters founded in the late 1960s.
Since 2013, a judge-appointed receiver has managed the property through ongoing foreclosure proceedings that were instigated by Centech, the company that owns the building’s mortgage.
“The receiver acts in the place of the landlord, and the tenant they leased it to is a boxing gym,” Centech’s lawyer Steven L. Einig told the Post. “We’re just happy that there’s progress. The building was very run down – basically it was falling apart.”
The 10-year lease took effect on June 1, Einig said. But given all the repairs that must be made, it could take “some time” before wannabe boxers can step in the ring.
The new gym will be called Overthrow NYC – a reference to one of the alternative newspapers the Yippies published from Number 9.
“I am aware of the momentous history of the building and hope to pay tribute in some form,” Joey Goodwin, who is leasing the space with a partner, told the Post.
Yippie Holdings and the National AIDS Brigade bought the building in 2004 – though the Yippies and their younger offshoot, the Zippies, have called it home for more than 40 years.
The group wasn’t going to let the once buzzing social activist hub go quietly.
Since 2009, they’ve been tangled in a legal battle with Centech over mortgage payments.
Court documents filed on behalf of Centech claim the organizations had failed to make payments on a $1.4 million mortgage.
“You can champion any cause you want as long as you pay,” Einig told the Post. “If you don’t pay, you don’t get to play.”
But a lawyer for Yippie Holdings, John Diffley, has rebuffed that version of the story, saying Centech rejected the group’s payments in a plot to seize the building.
In January, the Yippies were finally forced to leave behind their headquarters after State Supreme Court Judge Jeffrey K. Oing ordered them to vacate and make way for new tenants while foreclosure proceedings continued.
Diffley declined to comment on the new lease agreement, as litigation is still ongoing.