Radical Café

” Luckily, such a passionate brew was easy to come by south of 14th street at the turn of the 20th century, since the crowded cafés of the Lower East Side and Greenwich Village became headquarters for the city’s socialists, anarchists, writers and poets.
Downtown cafés acted as post-offices, libraries and information centers for political radicals and artistic revolutionaries. According to Goldman, on any given Saturday afternoon, one might find, “French Communards, Spanish and Italian refugees, Russian politicals, and German socialists and anarchists who had escaped the iron heel of Bismarck,” all gathered together to debate topics ranging from Free Love to Frederick Neitzsche.
Join us at Spreadhouse Café on May 24th for Radical Café: Anarchy and Community on the Lower East Side. Over a complementary drink, we’ll honor the neighborhood’s history of rebellion, learn about the area’s radical personalities and locales, and see how cafés nurtured the “beautiful ideal” of revolution.