Five years after Citi-Bike moved out of the space in 2021, and a protracted lease negotiation, Thrive Collective has officially moved their headquarters back into Jacob Riis Houses in the bottom floor of 154 Avenue D. After originally operating out of the space from 1996 to 2011, Jeremy Del Rio and what is now known as Thrive Collective have seen the highs and the lows of these rooms over the last three decades.

The timing of this return couldn’t be more aligned. Thrive revealed its 800th mural, which commemorates the community’s legacy, in the heart of the neighborhood at the Loisaida Festival on May 24. Let’s wind back the clock and revisit why this particular space in this particular neighborhood is so special.

The backstory

It’s 1994. A tall, glasses-wearing 19-year-old in his sophomore year at NYU was told to start a community youth outreach program in a neighborhood known for poverty, substance abuse, and related violence.

So he did. 

Jeremy Del Rio and a handful of volunteers from the nearby Abounding Grace Ministries Church, which was founded by his parents, Rick and Arlene Del Rio, in 1982, started a youth group in what is now the East 6th Street Community Center.

Rick and Arlene wanted to prioritize the youth in a community where children were exposed to rampant crime, street violence, and gang activity from very young ages. They saw in their three teenage sons eager and capable candidates to run the show — not to mention free labor. Jeremy, the oldest, says he “dodged the draft” for two years, preferring the life of an undergrad at nearby NYU. In 1994, he relented. Two years later, he and twelve teens from that youth group, including his brothers Jonathan and Jamie, co-founded Generation Xcel as an after school and summer camp program in Jacob Riis Houses.

One of the first courses of action was finding a hub to call their own. Being in the community was the priority, but little to no funding backed the search.

The final verdict? A rent-free, run-down, and overlooked space with yellow walls, cobwebs, and lots of dead waterbugs in the “community rooms” within the Lower East Side’s Jacob Riis Houses. Despite its desolate, seemingly depressing appearance, they filled their new youth center with toys and games, school desks and notebooks, and handmade posters and decorations that lined its painted concrete walls.

The first kids in the door came from the neighboring school, P.S./M.S. 34. Generation Xcel hosted after-school homework help sessions, went on field trips, and held basketball tournaments, which led to students becoming interwoven with the organization. During the summers, the volunteer-based program would fill each child’s day with fun, engaging activities to alleviate boredom. 

However, keeping the kids of the Lower East Side entertained was not the sole goal of Generation Xcel. They hoped to “empower inner-city young people to create and pursue hopeful alternatives to mediocrity, poverty, and delinquency and to enable youth to develop and realize ambitions and dreams.” The Lower East Side is known for its vast immigrant population and for its history of violence and gang activity. As a result, living and growing up there was never easy. Generation Xcel not only brought fun and excitement to the lives of the kids in the community but also provided them with friendship, mentorship, and a sense of stability in their uncertain, broken worlds. 

“Generation Xcel was a safe place for kids to go to, especially for kids who didn’t have parents and we were there to be a big brother or sister to them,” Kristi Brattli, cofounder and volunteer, said.

As a volunteer-based program, Generation Xcel relied heavily on the members of the community to be the basis of the organization with little to no pay. But this didn’t stop many of the young volunteers from giving their time and energy to helping the kids in their community. 

Christopher Maldonado, a former student and volunteer with Generation Xcel, expressed the eagerness he had to participate and give back to the program. “For me, volunteering with Generation Xcel was never about the money,” he said. “It was always about the kids; it was more important to me to be there for these kids than to get paid.”

From its initial start in February 1996 to September 1997, Generation Xcel saw over 250 kids register for their youth program, and hosted events that featured roughly 450 kids. 

But unfortunately, nothing good comes easy. Generation Xcel sublet the space in Jacob Riis Houses from a group called the Puerto Rican Council. The New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) started contacting the group, stating they needed to provide adequate paperwork and insurance for the space. Gen Xcel complied time after time.

In September 1997, Jeremy was informed by NYCHA — without any warning or explanation — that they could no longer continue operations in the space come Labor Day. Days later, the doors were locked, and no one could get in. All of Gen Xcel’s equipment, including computers, games, and a pool table, was stuck inside.

“The occupancy is totally illegal, totally incompetent, totally opposed by the neighborhood associations. We would be delinquents in our obligation to our tenants if we let them stay there,” Hilly Gross, spokesman of NYCHA, told NY1 in a TV report. 

Even though the eviction was a brutal blow to the mission, Generation Xcel never gave up on its goal. The group operated out of the basement of Abounding Grace while Jeremy, an NYU law school grad (at the time a student), actively fought to get the original space back.

Teenagers who were part of the program constantly called city politicians, including NYCHA Chairman Ruben Franco, pleading with them to allow Gen Xcel back into their space. Franco would eventually call Jeremy and express his annoyance that these kids kept calling his office.

On June 30, 1998, Jeremy and about 50 members of Generation Xcel attended a Town Hall meeting featuring New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani. Jeremy took the mic at the event and reported the story to Giuliani, who initially sided with Gen Xcel. However, when Franco took the mic, he called the group “squatters,” prompting a chorus of boos from the members present.

Giuliani eventually re-sided with Jeremy and had him meet with other officials present. But still, it was a long, grueling process.

Finally, in the summer of 1999, almost two years after getting evicted, Generation Xcel and NYCHA worked out a deal. The new deal brought them back into the original space at a minimal rent rate.

“(I’m) very happy. We worked hard. Two years straight, giving out flyers and doing petitions,” Rollie Barnes, Gen Xcel Co-founder, told WNBC at the time of reopening.

The return to the Jacob Riis Houses was symbolic to Del Rio and the rest of the organization’s integrity to the Lower East Side. Gen Xcel continued to grow and blossom, and so did the ideas of what the future held. 

In 2005, Jeremy’s younger brother, Jonathan, had the bright idea that if Gen Xcel crossed the street to serve PS/MS 34 from within the building, the impacts across the neighborhood would deepen. He applied to become a NYC Teaching Fellow with the goal of teaching middle school math and coaching basketball at the school. The school hired him the following year, and a tidal wave shift began.

In 2007, Gen Xcel produced a mural in the schoolyard called The Dream Walls. The project was a fun, one-off event that combined the organization’s passion for community events and creativity. Unbeknownst to them at the time, this would mark the beginning of a radically new direction.

After the Dream Walls project in 2007, Gen Xcel pivoted and launched 20/20 Vision for Schools, an awareness campaign to initiate partnerships among schools, youth workers, and community organizations. 20/20 Vision for Schools was initiated to help New York City school-aged youth by building meaningful relationships and engaging in acts of service with them at their schools.

 

A second school mural took place in 2011 at Brooklyn P.S. 102 called “Welcome.” Led by longtime artist Sam Wisneski, this project would become the template for Thrive’s School Mural Program, which was officially developed three years later.

Projects started taking off consistently from there. In 2015 alone, the group completed six murals around New York City, all centered around the word “thrive.” Project sites included schools in the Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens, and Staten Island. The idea embodied in that work resonated with each partnership, leading the group to pivot again and officially change its name from 20/20 Vision for Schools to Thrive Collective. A full timeline of Thrive’s upbringing and growth can be found here.

Fast-forward to 2026: Thrive has worked across the globe to beautify public spaces and engage communities, and just unveiled its 800th mural in the neighborhood that started it all.  

The return

As Thrive was growing in 2015, they began to run into the same problem: they were outgrowing their spaces.

This initially prompted a move out of the Lower East Side and into the Salvation Army Social Services Building in _______. That worked for a few years, but the organism of Thrive kept expanding — moving to Harlem, East Harlem, and then Coney Island over the span of seven years.

In 2021, Citi Bike moved out of the space in bottom floor of the Jacob Riis House of Avenue D — the same spot where this entire story started. Jeremy recognized it, and took notice. Unsurprisingly, negotiations for the space were arduous, drawn out, and tiresome. But eventually, in the fall of 2025, it was official — Thrive was coming back home.

But this time, it was a different animal. They left the space as a crew of DIY New Yorkers who loved helping kids in the community. They never lost that. But this time, they returned with 800 public murals under their belt, a cohort of determined young adults a part of The Barnabas Project, and an expanded network that stretches across the country.

After a series of clean-up and move-in days, Thrive officially returned to the space in ______. In Thrive fashion, they immediately transformed it using their community of artists.

A batch of artists came together to produce their own murals to adorn the walls of Thrive’s new headquarters at the Riis Houses. Photos by: Kory Powell, BitterSweet Creative

Even after the years of absence, the space already feels like home again. In an island with over 150,000 buildings, there’s something beautiful about coming back to a specific one. Thrive is Thrive wherever they go, but these walls hold the stories, the heartbreak, the joy, the art, and now, the future.