Lifestyle & Culture

Yoga, arts, community on St. Mark’s Place

By Jessica Romero Silver

On the fourth floor, some among the dancers who’d assembled for a fundraiser made small talk, while a dachshund scurried about, darting from room to room.

On the third floor, the two instrumentalists of The Royal Green Rangers, with their concert over, were trying to hug each and every person in their audience.

A yoga instructor was locking the door to a second-floor yoga studio.

St. Mark’s Yoga is a tenant of 12 St. Mark’s Place, a four-story building on the National Register of Historic Places. The other full-time tenant is Arts on Site, a nonprofit that rents out that third floor to a variety of visual and performance artists.

Having a stage you can afford to rent when you’re not a big name artist is important.

“It is kind of rare to find super, super nice beings in the arts,” said Leandria Lott, who plays viola, electric guitar and acoustic guitar and sings for The Royal Green Rangers. “A lot of times people have attitudes. They demand perfection, too, and that’s not required here.” 

Before moving Arts On Site to the third floor of 12 St. Mark’s Place, Chelsea Ainsworth was curating a monthly fundraiser featuring seven to 10 artists in her Harlem apartment. She co-founded Arts on Site with her husband Kyle Netzeband, a visual artist, and Adrain Rosas, one of Ainsworth’s classmates from The Julliard School. 

The owners of 12 St. Mark’s Place are Charles and Cathey FitzGerald. On one of these nights in Harlem, the FitzGeralds went to Ainsworth’s place to support their daughter, who was performing. After the show the FitzGerald parents couple walked over to Ainsworth. “You need more space,” Ainsworth recalls Charoes FitzGerald telling her in the crowded apartment. “You need to do this, and you need to do this more often.” 

“We had a lot of kinks, we made mad mistakes,” Lott recalls, of Royal Green Rangers’ first ever show at Arts on Site as a band. Lott and Brittany Harris, the other half of Rangers, started coming to Arts On Site in the fall of 2021. Lott is one of the current community directors at Arts On Site, where Harris had her first solo show. “I felt really drawn to Chelsea after Brit’s show, I said Chelsea I need to be involved here.” 

Charles FitzGerald, who bought the building in1968, describes it as one of the most sought-out spaces on the block. Since then, he’s refused several commercial real estate companies’ offers to buy it.

“I did not want it to become a real estate tycoon,” he said. 

The Arts on Site community extends beyond performance artists. Owned by Nickolas Velkov, St. Marks Yoga opened in the building last year.

“We love Greg, he’s the best instructor ever,” Jessica Hamlin said, of yogi Greg Stavrakas. “I love taking classes here. Yoga can be intimidating as a beginner, it’s a really great space to come and learn, no one judges you.”   

Shortly after she offered those compliments, Stavrakas walked into the studio. He’d landed at Arts on Site after losing his previous job as an accountant. After that loss,  “yoga was the only thing that made sense,” Stavrakas said. “I never choose to do it, it was sort of like a calling.”   

Stavrakas recalls the birthday party in the building last week for his boss. It was attended by St. Mark’s Yoga teachers and people who helped decorate their studios. Ainsworth, along with performers from Arts On Site, were there as well. 

“It was a great experience to get together and appreciate each other on how far we have come in the last year,” Stavrakas said, “and how much it’s going to keep growing if we keep on putting love into it. It’s natural to all of us, this is what we love.”