Chapter 1 the Struggle for Space Loyears of Turf Battling on The

Chapter 1 The Struggle for Space lOYears of Turf battling on the LowerEaet Side gy 1arah Fergueon June2005 -"It's one minute before midnight. The park is nowclosed." The tin voicebteated fromthe Loudspeakerof a squadcar stowly circling Tompkins Square's winding paths, disrupt- inga fewamorous couptes on benches,a pair of dogwalkers, some drunks dozing in thesur- prisingLycrisp summer ajr. But aside from a ratherwe[|. dressed coupte who wondered atoud, "Whydo they have to closethe parkon sucha beautifuInight?" there was little objection. A clumpof collegekids in artsypunk attire clustered at the exit,checked ce[[ phones, debatedwhich bar or partyto try out next.But the reaIpunks, the crustyatcohoLic traveters, hadaLready retired to the EastRiver to drinktheir spare-changed beer unfettered by potice. Thatmottey rabble of squattersand hippies, anarchist bjke messengers, homeless agitators andsoap-boxing radicals who'd once made this park their crucjble and crusade, had long sincemoved on. Thecops padLocked the gatesand catted it a night. Therewas a timewhen ctosing Tompkins Square was unthinkabte. In 1988,when police attemptedto imposea 1.a.m. curfew, it sparkeda bloodyriot. But for morethan L50 years priorto that (asidefrom a L5-yearspan following the CiviIWar when the parkwas requisi- tionedas a miLitaryparade ground), Tompkins Square was considered a "peopte's park" a communityliving room, recreational arena, and radical stomping ground that stayed open. Fromthe "breadriots" of 1857and 1.874 and the draftr'iot of 1,863,Tompkins Square earned a repas a stagefor politickingand sociaL strife, a Legacythat contjnuedthrough the 1960s and'70s, when the parkbecame a meccafor downtownbohemia, with smoke-insand [ove- insand antiwar raLlies organized by the Diggersand Yippies, and free concerts with the GratefuLDead, Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, Chartes Mingus and Sun Ra. In oneinfamous inci- denton MemorjalDay in 1.967,police brutally rousted and arrested a groupof hippiesand PuertoRicans who were strumming guitars and beating congas, in defianceof the "KeepOff the Grass"signs. (There were 38 arrestsand dozens of injuries.)A judgedismissed the charges,stating, "This court witl not denyequal protection to the unwashed,unshod, unkempt,and uninhibited."l Amblingthrough the parknow, with its verdantlawns and gardens tended wjth the hetpof vo[unteerssponsored by corporateinterests, jt's hardto fathomthat Legacy.It's hardto comprehenda tjme when neighborhood people -squatters, tenement dwel[ers, politicos and Lunaticpoets -wouLd put their bodies on the Lineto ctashwith the bluemeanjes over the rightto occupya four-bLock-squarepatch of earth.0r that punksfrom New Jersey and Long a d n Is[andwould actually commute to takepart in the Fridayand Saturday-night bottLe throwing t#t andstreet bonfires that became,from L988 to 1.991.,something of a neighborhoodrite. E KAA:a-.2rC? A K.aoica:ToliLical artd Social frielorv of the LowerEaet Side In this post-9/1,1moment,with the geography of oppression blown open as far as the mind cansee, it's sometimeshard to rememberhow a turf warover a scrappypiece of greenin the middleof NewYork City couLd have so captivateda movement,become its locusand spirituaIcenter, with the battlecry of "Freethe Land!" Memoryintercepts hollowed-out refrain of congadrums, "Pigs outa da park ,ra policesiren echoing Like graffiti bleedingthrough freshly painted walls. TOTALWAR FORLIVINO g?ACE What'schanged is thenotion that this was 0UR space to bedefended. The squatting and potiticalmovement that rose up in andaround Tompkins Square from roughLy 1985 to 1995 wasin manyways the Lastgeneration of activiststo conceiveof the LowerEast S'ide as oppositionaLspace. Thebattle over Tompkins Square grew out of a muchlarger and decades-oLd struggle to pre- servethe multiethnic,working-ctass nature of the neighborhoodagainst the forcesof "urbanrenewaL" and gentrification. For the squatters,homeless activjsts, artists, and social renegadeswho agitated there, defending the parkwas part of a muchmore ambitious gam- bjt to Liberatespace, to wrestcontrol of the city'sabandoned buitdings and rubble-strewn Lotsand create a newkind of communityoperating outside the reaLmof propertylaw. Theact of squattingcity-owned buitdings, of exemptingthem from the cycleof specu|.a- tjon,was not a symboticprotest but an eminently hands-on assau[t on the bedrock of New YorkcapitaLism- reaI estate- whjch offered tangibte resutts: You got a cheapplace to live andconsort with feltow radica[s making art and ragging on the system. In this context,Tompkins Square served asboth a livingsymboL of theneighborhood's dis- sentand a physicaLLocus for organizing andagitating against the homogenizingtide of wealthand redevelopment. "Theidea of space-of organizingaround space -came fromthe negative,from the idea that the governmentwas actjvely moving to spatiatlydeconcentrate inner city areas,"says formersquatter and activist Frank Morales. "It becamean operativeunderstanding, part of theanalysis of areasLike the South Bronx and Lower East Side." A radicaIEpiscopaI priest who had heLped a group successfulty homestead a coup[e of buil"d- ingsin theSouth Bronx, Morales arrjved on the LowerEast Side in 1985wjth a stackof federaLhousing documents reLating to the KernerCommission Report on the riotsthat rippedthrough America's inner cjties during the late 1960s. Whil"e generaLLy thought of asa ratherbenevolent attempt to remedythe country'sdeepening racial divide (the report famouslywarned the U.S. was "moving toward two societies, one b[ack, one whjte -sepa- rateand unequal"), the KernerReport's authors also made some controversial recommenda- tjonsfor restoringorder jn urbanareas. In orderto aLlevjatepoverty and the growinghos- tility towardmajnstream society by minoritiesliving jn theseovercrowded "slums," the l,oueinq/Squale Sarah Ferquoon 'eportrecommended policies to encourage"substantial Negro movement out of the ghettos," andinto the white-dominated suburbs.2 34# Subsequentdocuments from the Departmentof Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and KernerCommission consultant Anthony Downs referred to a policyof "spatialdeconcentra- Jon"-essentiatly deconcentrating thepoor from the inner cities by withholding funds and servicesto theseareas in orderto makeway for moremjddle-ctass development. Whether or 'ot "SpatialD" jtself was ever instjtuted as public policy remains unclear; the documenta- :on seemedvague at best.But when YoLanda Ward, the activistwho'd sought to exposethis conspiracy,was shot to deathon a Washjngton,DC street in 1985,it reconfirmedthe sense anongurban radica[s that the government was activety engaged in a waron thepoor.3 PubLishedin the radicaLgraphic zine World War 3 lllustratedin 1.9864,this theory of spatiaI ceconcentrationwas central to the perspectiveof the moremiLitant squatter activists. Iomingout of thefiscal crisis, when the Beameand Koch administrations cutservices to toorneighborhoods like the LowerEast Side and the South Bronx and whoLe bLocks of tene- :'entswere burned to the groundin arsonfires, it waseasy to seewhy. Less conspiratorial mightbe tempted to castthe city'sactions during that periodas more indicative of -inds :epravednegtect by an institutionaltyracist bureaucracy wjth no moneyand nothing to be qainedfrom helping the poor.(DanieL Patrjck Moynihan had famousLy advocated a po[icy of ':enignnegtect"; Abe Beame's housing czar Roger Starr came up with the term "pLanned srrinkage.")But for communityagitators [ike MoraLes, this wasa concertedplot to cLearthe roorand neutraLize urban dissent involving the potice,the military,and the Federal EmergencyManagement Agency (FEMA)s acting in concertwith city ptannersand real estate oevelopers.And the subsequent, obscene speculation on the abandoned and di[apidated nousingstock of the EastViLlage in the 1980sand earty'90s, fottowed by the city's paramiLi- raryevictions of squattersand home[ess, would serve as proof of the conspiracy: 'Wesaw the taking of buiLdingsas part of a counterattackjn this spatiaI war, so to speak," XoraLesexplains. "From then on, the notjonof space-seizingterritory as a defensivestrat- egyagainst thjs onslaught to removeand push Ipoor peopLe] out of thearea -became the certerof whatwe were talking about. The jdea of buiLdingcommunjties of resistance was I'eciselythat. It washands-on ideology, not abstractbut ultimatelypractica[. We were resistingthis effortto removeus from these areas." --e strategy,Morales exptains, "was both affirmative-taking buitdings or makinggardens to :-eatefree space, to extendthe spacewhere there was no speculation;and defensive- cefendingthe squatsthat hadatready been taken, and thereby sLowing the reaLestate pres- s*resaround you, which in turn hetpedpreserve the lowrent housing in the area." I-e notionof freespace aLso harkened back to the Diggersof the 1960s(themselves a :rrowbackto the 17thcentury squatter movement in England)and Proudhon's old anarchist ixiage,"property is theft." It wasalso a reactjonto the stultificationof the traditionalLeft rnd theevisceration of the workpLaceasa fieLdfor sociaIstruggte. In contrastto marching in thestreets, squatting was direct action that couLdboast of morethan symboLic gains: To trxe a buitdinqand make a homein oneof the richestcities in the wortd.To make that Keeielance A KadicalToliLical and Socialliotory of the LowerEaeI Side buiidinga stagefor politicaldissent and an anti-consumptionlifestyle, thumbing your nose I /1 /t at the systemand the markettheocrats who served Mammon. t "*":r Ftyerscirculating

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