<%function title()%> FringeCENTRAL <%end function%> <%function content()%>
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One of our greatest challenges in producing FringeNYC is finding available, ground floor, well located, large commercial real estate to serve as FringeCENTRAL. In 2007, I passed by an enormous former grocery store on the corner of Carmine and Varick. | |
| A beautiful location to serve as our home. | ||
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As soon as I got back to my office, I logged onto the internet to find out who the owners were. After I'd prepared our very best "pitch", I logged back on to confirm the owner's address, and according to the city's records, the building had changed hands just ten minutes before that! | |
| A community center for the festival. | ||
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I was flabbergasted, but sent the proposal to the new owners, and explained the importance of this, our most significant in-kind donation. | |
| A place for us to sell tickets... | ||
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So I nearly fell over when the owners responded. Adam Gever from The Alrose Group returned my call. As you can imagine, convincing someone who has just purchased a major property in Manhattan that they should turn around and give it away in a few months is a difficult task. | |
| ...produce our Special Events... | ||
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But as we got closer, and I told Adam that we needed to confirm a location so that we had an address to print, he said
I couldn't have said it better, Adam. |
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| ...greet our arriving international participants... | ||
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Thanks to Adam Gever and Allen Rosenberg for our most significant and most important donation to date, the 15,000 square foot space at Varick and Carmine for more than six weeks. | |
| ...and welcome back old friends. | ||
Quite simply, none of the accomplishments we mention in the rest of this Annual Report would have been possible without The Alrose Group's donation. FringeCENTRAL was the home of ALL of our special events, provided tech storage, meeting location, our administrative offices, the box office, a place to record podcasts, an outdoor patio, storage of printed materials, vendor space, and much, much more. It is hard to put a value on their contribution - it is so much more than what the rent would have been on the space. Our FringeCENTRAL donor is really the cornerstone of building the festival. And from the very beginning, Adam seemed to understand that although we didn't have much money to offer, we had a community of talented, hard working people that would go to work to make his property shine. And he also seemed to believe that we were up to something good.... Thank you, Adam, for your belief in us. We'll never forget it. |
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