Fly cuts a memorable figure: a petite woman, but wiry and strong; precise pale blond stripes bleached into her dark hair; perpetual large-framed sunglasses worn at the tip of her nose lending her, yes, a fly-like aspect, obscuring a beautiful face. She’s quick to smile, eager to tell a story.

And she’s got some good stories. As the artist who created the mural that hangs over ABC No Rio, the famed center for art and activism in New York City, and a musician and longtime squatter and activist, Fly is a fixture on the Lower East Side — a reminder of the neighborhood as it was in earlier, grittier days.

In October 2013, I visited Fly in her apartment in a squat on E. 7th Street in Manhattan’s Lower East Side. When she first moved into her building in 1992, she was granted a space in a section of the squat that had been gutted by fire. It had no floor or windows; no heat, no electricity, no running water. With the help of fellow squatters, she rebuilt the apartment over a period of several years.