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 ."

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 in the neighborhoodspoke of "TotaIWar for LivingSpace." And indeed, the battleover the squatsand Tompkins Square took on mythicovertones, with activjsts castingthe fightto "freethe [and"as a guerriltastruggle against the rightwingideological assaultof the Reaganadmjnistration, or in sotidaritywith the uprisingsof landtesspeas- antsin LatinAmerica. That stance gave this otherwise[oca[ struggle its radjcalcachet, attractingpunks and actjvists from across the U.S.and Europe, atong with the usuaIpara- siticelements of the sectarjanLeft seeking to capitatizeoff the latestsocial unrest.

0f course,many minorities and long-term Lower East Siders saw the squattersand Tompkins Squareagitators less as defenders of the neighborhoodand more as interlopers on their turf. (TheLES has never been kind to newcomers,and it hadseen a[[ manner of idealism before.)

THE MYTHOSOF TOM?KINggQUARE

Thisconception of the LowerEast Side as a kjndof finalfrontier for urbanstruggle drew fromthe area'sradical history -a cultureof dissentthat datesback to the neighborhood's formationas an immigrantentry point and working class stum, home to sociatists,anar- chists,feminists and numerous competing ethnic groups vying for space.Tompkins Square ptayeda keyrole jn the creationof that ethos.When it wasconstructed in 1834,city offi- cialsexpected the parkto attractwealthy families to the area,[ike those already occupying eleganttownhouses to the westof SecondAvenue. But the expansionof the wealthydis- trict washalted by the economicdepression of 1837.Instead, the neighborhoodsurround- ing the parkwas soon fiLLed with Germanand Irish immigrants drawn to workin the [oca[ shipyards,known as the DryDock, along the EastRiver.6

Livingconditions in the overcrowdedtenements were abysmal and grew worse during the economiccrunch of 1.857,when many were thrown out of work.For the first of manytimes, TompkinsSquare was transformed into a fietdof protest,as unemployed Dry Dock workers demonstratedto demand that the city providejobs in pubticprojects such as the construc- tion of CentraIPark, then underway. Park benches were torn apart for bonfires.A NewYork Timesheadtine read: "THE UNEMPL0YED: Great Gatherings in TompkinsSquare and the Park. U.S.Troops Guard the CustomHouse."

CityHatt responded to thesedjsturbances by havingthe parkcomptetely renovated in 1859. Butthis effortto imposea newstandard of decorumwas short-tived. Large-scale rioting eruptedin TompkinsSquare and across the cityjn 1863to protestthe CjvitWar draft (beyondnot wanting to fightfor "negroes,"many poor whites were pissed that the rjch cou[dget out of the draftby paying$lOO;.2 Three years tater, the Statelegislature had the wholepark razed and transformed into a drittground for the NewYork State mititia. The heavymilitary presence in the areadid littleto coolneighborhood agitators - fromfemi- nistsadvocating women's suffrage to anarchistsand sociatists urging working ctass revolu- tion,or organizingrent strikes and boycotts for cheaperfood. loueinq/Aopa-..

Sarah Feraueon

Tensjonsexptoded ,,panic,, in JanuaryLg74, in the wakeof the financial of 1g73,when police brutal'l'yshut down a ].0,000-strongratty of workersand unempLoyed in Tompkins "1'*.' Square, clubbingboth demonstrators and bystinders jn a meleethat laborleader samuel Gompersdescribed "an as orgyof bruta[ity.,'8Accounts of the eventeerily presage the Tompkinssquare riot of 1988.without warning, police on horsebacksurrounded the square and suddentycharged into the crowdfrom a[[iides with their nightsticks swinging. ,,Women andchi[dren went screamingin at[directions. Many of themwere trampLed underfoot in the stampedefor the gates.In the streets,bystanders were ridden down and mercilessly ctubb'ed by mounted ,,riotous officers."9Newspaper reports demonized the demonstratorsas commu- nists"raising the specterof the "redf[ag" over . But thjs brutal.attack on the workingctass atsoserved to radicalizeand atienate the locaIpopu[ace from the city at large, settingoff a dynamicof militantLower East Siders resisting City Hatt that woul.drepeat for generationsto come.

Sixmonths afterthe 1'874riot, some 3,000 people gathered in TompkinsSquare and resolved that the park shouLdatways remain "open to the peoplefor thejrfree assemb[y." LocaI resi- dentscampaigned for the removaIof the mititary,,nd in 1.87g,the whotepark was finatty reinstatedfor pubticuse.1o

It's worthreviewing this earty history because it hetpsaccount for the degreeof politicaL andeconomic exceptionalismthat evolvedon the LowerEast Side -the w1ythe neighbor- hoodseemed to functionfor so manydecades as an islandunto itself. Desp"ite the area,sret- ativetyeasy proximity to the downtownfinancial district, efforts by Newyork,s ru[ing c[ass to transformthe neighborhood into a Watl,Street bedroom were repeatedly confounaed by a combination of communityresistance and economic downturns. In L929,the Rockefetter- sponsored RegionalP[an Association came up with an ambjtiousscheme to razeLarge blocks of tenements to erecta secondAvenue speedway, "high-class" high-rises, modern shops, evena yachtbasin on the EastRiver. The plan met heavy neighborhood oppositjon from ten- ant andlabor groups, but waslargely sunk by the arrjvaiofthe GreatDepression. SimiLarty, a L956urban renewal ptanby RobertMoses that wouldhave mowed down whole bl.ocks of tenements betweenEast Ninth Street and Delancey Street was defeated by a decadeof intensepoLitical organizingby the CooperSquare tommittee, combined with the ongoing exodusof the middtectasses to the suburbs,which drew government and investment capita[ out of the innercities.11

Instead, otherwaves of immigrants-Puerto Ricansand Dominjcans, .n& Afri.unAmericans fleeingpoverty in the South-flooded the LowerEast Side, retrenching the perceptionof the area "ethnic asan stum."As sociaI geographer NeiL smith writes, "in the postwarperiod, disjnvestment andabandonment, demotition and pubtic warehousing, were the majortactics of a virutent antiurbanismthat convertedthe LowerEast Side into iomethingof a free-fire zone."72 Cheaprents ,50s, drewbeatniks and artists from the GreenwjchVittage in the thenthe hip- piesof '60s, the atongwith atl mannerof radicalfactions from the Diggersto theyoung Lords,Btack Panthers,free-loving communalists, Kerista sex cultists, Jervishing Hare Krishnas,and UpAgainst the WattMotherfuckers. The radicalized, otrbeat;.r;; of the nejqh-

Itr -r Keeist,ance

A RadicalTolitical and SocialAietory of trheLower Easf, Side

borhood,combined with the deepening squator and crime wrought by the inftuxof heroin, gave tlita speedand crack cocaine in the'60s,'70s,and'80s, the LowerEast Side its reputation asan "out[aw"zone.

Withthe arrivalof artistsin the early'80ssprouting renegade gaLteries and performance spacesin the area'sbottomed-out storefronts, that outlawflavor became chic. Many of thesenew artists were white and middte class, staking out a newfrontier against the sout- lessconsumerism of the suburbsand frightening Cotd War posturing of the Reaganadminis- tration.They reveled in the clashof theirfreewheeling, downscale bohemia thriving in the shadowof the corporatetitans that ruledmidtown and Wa[[ Street. But their mediagenic spectactemade them pilot fish for gentrification,as both speculators and City HaL[ rushed to capitatizeon the notionof the "EastVi[|.age" as the newhipster SoHo.13

In 1.98L,for examp[e,Mayor Ed Koch proposed auctioning off vacantbuildings to devetop- ersto createartist co-ops. But the ptanwas fiercety opposed by locathousing groups and manyartists themsetves when it waslearned that the co-ops,pub|.icty financed as Low and moderate-incomehousing, would se[[ for $50,000and could be fLipped at marketrates after ontythree years. Members of the LowerEast Side Joint P|"anning Counci|" (JPC) -a coalition of morethan 30 housingand community groups, many of themclosety atigned with the CooperSquare Committee -tacked up signson the abandonedtenements proclaiming: "This LandIs Ours.Property of the Peopleof the LowerEast Side: Specutators Keep 0ut!" (0neof thesesigns sti[[ proudl.y adorns "C Squat" at 155Avenue C), and the planwas voted down by the Boardof Estimatein 1983.1a

HOMEgTEADERgTAKE OVER

Manyof the membersof theJPC were themsetves pioneers in the firstwave of home- steadingon the LowerEast Side that beganin the mid1970s. White there had been spo- radicefforts at squattingin previousdecades (books tike Ed Sanders' Tales of BeatnikGlory andWiltiam Kotzwinkte's The Fan Man are rjfe with scenesof hippiecrash pads), the notjon of peopleusing "sweat equity" to futtyrenovate buildings for low-incomehousing took root 'inthe '70s,led by neighborhoodresjdents and tenants of in-rembuil.dings who refused to leaveduring the ons[aughtof firesand abandonment that sweptthe areaduring the fiscaL crisis,atong with someinspired social activists drawn to the urbanbattle zone. At the time theirefforts were quite celebrated. In 1.976,CBS Evening News with WalterCronkite featured a reporton the LLthStreet Movement, a g{oup of homesteaderswho took over several abandonedbuitdings on EastL1th Street, presenting the groupas pioneers in the fight againsturban despair.

Thegroup was founded by locaIresidents and activists such as Michael Friedberg, a maver- jckfrom South Africa, who teamed up with InterfaithAdopt-a-Building, a newty formed, citywidesweat equity group. By today's standards, their projectto createa kindof self-suf- ficientcommune in the EastVittage seems witdly idealistic. At 519East ]"1th, the home- steadersinstalled an Africanfish farm in the basement,along with sotarpanets and a wind- mi[[on the roof,and at onepoint even succeeded in forcing Con Edison to buythe excess tloueinglSquale

Sarah Ferguoon eLectricityit generated. (Ihe schemeadmittedty didn't |.ast Long; the wjndmi|.Lis sti[[ there but neverfunctjoned alL that weLLand has years.) beendormant for Theyalso transformed a 1 d_ry seriesof drug-infestedlots on EastL2th Street into a communitygarden caLted Et SoL * *c BriLLante-oneof the fewsuch green spaces in NewYork City that is cooperativelyowned by [ocaLresidents.l5

Impressedby the successof the 11thStreet Movement and similar projects in the South Bronxand East Harlem, Presjdent Jimmy Carter authorized a NationaL Urban Homestead'ing DemonstrationProgram in 1"977,which funneted federal monies into homesteadingprojects, genera[[ythrough established community organizations such as Adopt-A-BuiLding andUHAB (theUrban Homesteading Assistance Board).0thers eschewed the red tape and bureaucracy of theseschemes in favorof a more"setf-help"-minded approach, such as A BetterWay, a groupof [ocaIactivists and tenants who took over four tenements on EastSixth Street. In fact,it wasin partto quella rashof unauthorizedbuitding occupations across the city by bothtenants and activist groups Like ACORN and Banana Kel.ty (in the Bronx)that the city launchedits ownhomesteading program in 1980.The program, which was fair[y jnformaL in its earlyyears, granted groups title andfinancial assistance to renovatebuitdings that the cityotherwise might have torn down.

In the earlydays, one homesteader remembers, a group could form a tenantassociation to rehaba buiLdingand actualty get the cityto delivermaterja[s. "We wou[d just go into these buitdingsand start gutting them out to kjndof stakeour claim, then back that up by put- ting in an applicationfor the city Ihomesteading]program or to getfunding from the federa[government or state,"says Howard Brandstein, executjve director of the SixthStreet CommunityCenter, who heLped homestead numerous buiLdings on the LowerEast Side throughAdopt-a-BuiLding andRAIN (Rehabititation in Action for Improvement of Neighborhoods),a Local sweat-equity group funded by the LowerEast Side Catholjc Area Conference(LESCAC). "We'd tetl the city wewere applying for funding,and the citywould giveus provisionaI st'te controL. The city just didn'tcare. The neighborhood wasn't worth anythingback then," Brandstein says.

At onepoint, homesteaders could quatify for $45,000per unit or morein cityand state and federalfunding to renovatebuitdings.16 Brandstein estjmates more than 30 buiLdingswere homesteadedon the LowerEast Side by variousgroups. Many of thosehomesteaders went on to becomemembers of the Localcommunity board, such as Margarita Lopez, who was subse- quentlyelected to representthe neighborhoodon the CityCouncil; others became successful artistssuch as composers Butch Morrjs and JemeeI Moondoc, and actor Lujs Guzman.

Butmany others were Left out in the coLd.Reagan dumped the federalhomesteading pro- gramalong with aLl"of Carter's"green renewal" efforts as soon as he took office, and the city'shousing department became increasingLy restrjctive about approving buitdings, eventu- a[[ycanceling its programin L986as reaL estate values across the city surged. Cityofficials now insist that homesteadingwas never "practicaL" enough to beconsidered a viablemeans of creatinglow-income housing. For a[[ those buildings that succeeded, many othersdissoLved in internaI disputes or aspeople drifted off. In fact,many of the truLy Kesielance

A Kadical?olitical and Socialliotory of r'heLower EasN Side

needyhomesteaders became fed up withthe refusaLof the city andits sanctionedhousing 'i" groupsto allowpeople to Ljvein the buildingsuntiL they were fulLy renovated. '+* Localhousing advocates also became disiLLusioned with homesteadjngasa meansto create [ow-incomehousing-especiaLl"y asmarket pressures in the neighborhoodintensified. Brandsteinreflects: "HomesteadinE was inherentty more of an anarchiststructure of setf- governmentin each building. It wasa veryelaborate model, but it didn'thoLd together in termsof theforces that weretearing people apart on the LowerEast Side. There was no Longera poLiticaL conception in theneighborhood to keep buiLding this cooperative struc- ture. . . Peoplewould start exploiting the situation-behaving |'ike owners and trying to getout of the resaLerestrictions. A Lot of buiLdingswere ending up in conftict.Atso, there weren'tenough peopte wjth skil"Ls;we weren't drawing a criticaImass of peopLe.And the buildingsthemseLves needed support structures so they didn't fa|.[ into this kindof capital- ist thinking.So we came up with a schemefor a landtrust," whereby the tenements would beowned as low-income co-ops, but the Land wou[d be held by a community[and trust.

Theprob[em, in theeyes of Brandstejnand other JPCites, was that homesteadingalone cou[dnot check the wave of gentrificationthat by the mid-80swas threatening to subsume theremaining undeveLoped properties on the LowerEast Side. Neighborhood housing advo- catesturned their attentjons to fightingoff Koch'splans to auctjonoff [argenumbers of emptybuildings to privatedevetopers. That fight Led to theinfamous 50-50 cross subsidy pLan,whereby the cityagreed to aLlowthe remajningin-rem buitdings to be renovatedfor lowand moderate-income housing in exchangefor the abiLityto seLLoff vacantlots for market-ratedevelopment. 17

Negotiatedby membersof theJPC and Community Board 3 andfinaLLy approved in 1.987, the cross-subsidyp[an was considered a triumph of localismover the city'sreal-estate- friendLyhousing bureaucracy. (Housing cross-subsidies were a relativelynovel concept at thetime). The probLem, of course,was where to getthe moneyto renovatethe buiLdings for [ow-incomepeopLe? The feds weren't giving much of anything,and foLlowing the stock marketcrash of 1,987, the cjtvwasn't either.

gQUATTERgMOVE IN

In the meantime,a new generation of activistswas a[ready taking over buiLdings on the LowerEast Side, and pushing a moreradjcaI notion of homesteadingthan the community groupsthat came before them. There have been so many misconceptions of who the squat- terswere, and in facttheir collectjve identity has always been hard to define.Some were Localswho sought offjciaL sanction and titte to buitdings,but foundthat the city hadcan- celledits homesteadingprogram -or wererefused entry, such as the residentsoccupying threetenements on EastSeventh Street between Avenues Cand D, which were taken over by a mixtureof originaItenants and squatters in the earty1.970s.Others were radicaLs who wantedno partof "thesystem." Many squatted from necessity, or to sustaintheir down- wardlymobiLe art careers.Othersbecause they wanted the freedomto createtheir own homesand live outside the "rents[ave" housinq market. 0r to demonstratewith their own loueinglSquaLe

Sarah Ferqueon handsthe criminatityof a housingbureaucracy that couldleave so manywithout homes. There youpressed. wasnever any sing[e reason if 14# Theiroutsider status was rejnforced by the state'srefusal to recognizesweat equity as a meansof creatinghousing any Longer. That refusaL helped define a moreradjcaL and desper- atepopuLation. Anyone wi[[ing to livewith perpetuaIthreat of evictionhad to besomething of a rebel-whetheryou called yourself a homesteaderor a squatter.

Stjt[,within the squattingscene there were two somewhatoverlapping phitosophies: those whoconsidered themselves homesteaders using self-help to createhomes, with the ultimate aimof forcingthe cityto givethem tit[e to the property;and those who squatted in defi- anceof property[aws. believing housing should be "free" (or at leastfree to thosevrho workedto reclaimit.)

DavidBoyte epitomized the formerphil,osophy. A former PoLice Academy recruit and New Schooluniversity student, Boyle hetped found the 13thStreet Homesteading Coalition, wh'ichtook over six buitdings on L3thbetween Avenues A and B in the mid-1980s.Boyle sayshe got the ideato squatthe buil.dingsfrom Sarah Farley, a formerciviL rights organizer fromthe South who had squatted a building on EastSixth Street in the'70s(it laterburned down)and ran a groupca[[ed LAND (Local Action for NeighborhoodDevetopment) out of the thrift shopon the groundfloor.

"Sarahtold meto workon buildinggardens jn the [empty][ots, which I did at SixthStreet," notesBoyle, who hel,ped found the Sixth Street and CommunjtyGarden.'And then shesajd to starttaking over buildings." Boyte says he and RoLando Potitti, an Italianartist whoimmigrated to the LowerEast Side in 1.980,initiatty tried to join the fractiousmix of homesteaderson East Seventh Street between C and D but wereput off by the infighting.la Theythen opened a buitdingon EastThird Street, which got taken over by MickeyCesar, the infamous"Pope of Dope"pot deater.They atso made a stabat clearingout a nascentsquat on EastFjfth Street, whjch Boyle says was already occupied by severaIhomeLess drunks and a coupLeof streetpeddLers who objected to theirefforts to removetheir junk.te

ThenFarley directed Boyle, Polittj, and a youngactivjst named Marjssa DeDominici to the swathof unoccuoiedtenements on East13th Street.

"Wewere [ike gung-ho Sandinjsta Marxists at that point,"says Boyte. "We were interested in doingsometh'ing new. Our inspiration was the Mondragoncooperatives led by the BasqtJe separatistsin Spain[during the 1950s].Rather than pursuing some kind of militaryprogram, the Mondragonsbetieve the bestway to obtajnindependence was to controLthe [andand industry.So we thought we were going to besetting up somesort of cooperativeeconomy on the LowerEast Side. And the first step was giving value to people'slabor, so the sweat equitything really dovetaited into that.We actua[y printed up ourown money with some laborguy's face on it that we usedas receipts. If youcoutdn't pay your rent money to the building,which was then [ike $75 or $100a month,you coutd pay it withLabor notes." Accordingto Boy[e,this systemfunctioned fairly efficientty for abouta year,with roughLy60 members."With everyone paying $75 to $100,we had a couptethousand a month to spend Keeietance

A KadicalToliLical and SociallioIory of t'heLower East Side

on the buildings,which meant we were abte to payoutside contractors to do somebig rqn $8,000-job,Like run an electricaltine from the street.We had a realcommonweal going. We weremoving toward being a partof RAIN,toward becoming Legal homesteaders. But we hada moreadventurous model than RAIN because we were living in the buitdingswhiLe we renovatedthem."

Livingin the buiLdingswhi[e you renovated was a majorsticking point in negotiationswith the city.White many early homesteaders got awaywith inhabiting the spacesthey worked on, by the early'80s,that wasn'tan optionjn the eyesof city bureaucratsand the housing groupsthat funnetedpeople into its tegalhomesteading program.

"Thecity rea[Lywent nuctear against you when you moved people into a buiLding,because that meantyou were taking it over,"says Boyle. "The city didn't want people to Uvethere. Thatmeant you were squatting, and the citywou[dn't deaL with squatters.When home- steadinggroups Like RAIN and Adopt-a-Building went in andstarted working on a building, theydid it withoutcity permission.But they didn't go sofar asto say,we havethis buiLd- ing.It wasmore [ike, we've invested energy in it. Whereasour position was, we haveit."

Nevertheless,Boyle says initiatly there was some crossover between the two camps."Groups LikeRAIN and Adopt-a-Building were reatly building a constituencymore than they were takingover buildjngs," Boyle maintains. "The peop[e in thejrgroups who came to workdays

dL'+ cl- ^-'+i^"r'rPcllLlLuLcl buiLding weren't necessari[y the peoplewho moved into it. Weshowed up andworked on someof RAIN'sbuitdings, and they hetped us a bit, too." (In fact,Boyle sayshe heLpedjnitjate the JPC scheme to put up signson abandonedtenements declaring them"Property of the Peopleof the LowerEast Side" in djrectresponse to aL|"the "ForSate" signsthat the citywas tacking up. They fashioned the signsfrom the tin the city hadused to boardup the vacantbuildings, and spray painted them at oneof the 13thStreet squats.

In orderto getaround the factthat the citywould not negotiatewith squatters,Boyle and someof the other1"3th Street homesteaders formed their own not-for-profit group, OutstandingRenewal Enterprises (0RE). "The idea was to havean entitythat the city could dealwith, because they woutdn't deal wjth us,"Boyle exptains. As a legalnot-for-profit, 0REwas atlowed to join theJojnt PLanning Counci[. The group got grantsto startthe LowerEast Side's first recycling program and was instrumentat with othermembers of the JPCin hel,pingfound the LowerEast Side People's Credit Union. Al.though 0RE and the 13th Streethomesteaders initiatly won approvaI from the [ocaIcommunity board for a coup[eof thejrbuil"dings, Boyle says the group'sdrjve to becomea Legalhomestead unraveted becauseof internaldisputes.

"Wegot a coupleof badapples in therewho took apart the programby goingfor rent strikesagainst us," Boyle says. "We were moving toward becoming a partof RAIN,and somepeople didn't want to gothat way.I thinkthey figured that oncewe were part of RAIN,they couldn't get away with not payingrent, so it waseasier to takeus out. So they initiatedthis campaignof rumor-mongeringand scandal, and then RAIN woutdn't take us in." loueinglSquaLe

Sarah Ferauoon

Bythat time,the 13thStreet buitdings had attracted other squatters who fett housing shouLdbe free. They clashed with Boyteand the other0RE members' efforts to imposerules "]q{-l andstructure. "I waspretty Stalinist at the time,"Boyte concedes. "I felt that if wewere r'qr* tryingto producesome kind of sma[[utopian thing, you had to work,produce some kind of money,and contribute to the coltective.But these other people didn't want any part of 'the system,'andat that point, we were a system[in thebuiLdings]. Sothey spent a[[ their ener- gy resistingus," he says.

Othersinvolved at the timewould no doubtobject vociferously to Boyle'sversjon of events. [20]What's atways been fascjnating about the squatsjs the intensityof competingpersonat- itjes,ideaLs and objectives within them. For at[ its conflicts,the 13thStreet scene became a seedpodfor othersquatting efforts and art projects,such as the ShuttleTheatre in the groundfloor of 537East 13th Street, which became a venuefor LivingTheatre plays, jazz improvsand performances by Local and traveling artists [ike Baba Ol,atunji.

OCCUTIEDTERRITORIE9

Anothercorridor of squatsevolved on EastEighth Street between Avenues B andC when MichaelShenket a musicianand setf-taught etectrician (who had atso been inspired by Sarah Farley),opened up an emptytenement at 31.9East Eighth Street in the springof 1984with hisgirlfriend Natasha and some other people from the neighborhoodwho were seeking cheaphousing. 0ne of them,a JamaicanrAmericanwoman named Tya Scott, split from 319 andopened up herown buitding across the streetat 316East Eighth Street w'ith her sons andtheir extended famities. (Tya kept her distance from lle re

Laterthat fa[|.,some activists traveling with the RockAgainst Reagan tour returned from the Repub|.icanConvention in Da[[asand broke into the backof 327-29East Eighth Street. Accordingto YippieJerry "the PeddLer"Wade, the buiLdingwas more of a crashpad untiI "English"Steve Harrington and Cathy Thompson arrjved, fresh from the squattingscene in Europeand looking to put in practicethe revoLutionaryjdeats and squatting ski|.[s they'd Learnedthere. Wade says he hel.pedsledgehammer open the frontdoor with Harringtonand CathyThompson in December1,984. They were soon joined by FrankMora[es, who had returnedto the LowerEast Side in 1985seeking to applythe modelof homesteadinghe'd learnedin the Bronx.

Theintersectjon of radicaljdeaLism at327-29 proved to be a fertj[emjx. "We didn't reatly becomeorganized as'squatters'until we opened up 327-29,"says Wade, who had eartier takenover another abandoned buitding at 643East 11th Street. "We were stiLL arguing about the useof the wordsquatting, and whether we shou|"d be squatters or homesteaders.Most peoplewanted to ca|.Lit homesteading.They kept saying'squatting is something you do whenyou take a shit.'But we weren't homesteaders. Wedidn't quatify for anyof the Ihome- steading]programs, and most of thoseprograms wouldn't want us anyway, even if wedid lLaughsl.Then Engtish Steve and Cathy came and started using the term squatting left and right,and we kindof wentwith it fromthere."

I Keeielance

A KadicalTolif,ical and SocialHietrorv of trheLower East Side

RecatlsHarrington:

I t"i.J LJ F\: "T" Wewere the anarchjstsquatters, so we hadno intentionof goinglegat. BecominglegaI wou|.d have been too muchdeating with the system.We'd been squattingin Europe,where you just didn'tconsider that, where becoming [ega[ wasup there with informing on yourneighbor. It wastoo much.That's how we thoughtof it backthen.

Accordingto Morates,327became a pit stopfor activistsand folks traveting the under- groundcircuit- jncludingfolksinger Michette Shocked, who squatted there for a summer andheld hootenannjes in the ground-floorcommunity room. "327 was a mothershipon the b[ock,"he reca[[s. "Peopte from a[[ over the worldwere coming there-from Brixton,Latin Amerjca,different parts of the US,Italy, Lots of fi[m crews.Wherever people were squatting, theywould hear about squatting in NewYork and they just showedup there. Between 1985 and'87, we hadaLl kinds of thingsgoing on there.It wasreatly great . . . Soonafter that, two or threeother buiLdings were opened up on the block.So Eighth Street became the inj- tiatjumping-0ffpoint, and littte by Littte,we movedout to [othersquats] in the neighbor- hood."

AdmittedLy,the othersquats that openedon EighthStreet remained rather marginal. Across the streetat 336-38East Eighth Street, Momma Lee, a spiritedmiddle-aged woman, presidedover a kindof collectivecrash pad for punkrockers, transients, druggies and numerousdogs inside a cavernousdouble-barreled tenement that neverseemed to get workedon much.Dwight, a formershelter resident, led the squatnext door and ran a[[- nightpunk fests in an abandonedgarage down the btockdubbed the Peop[e'sWarehouse. 318was occupied by severaIformer street dwellers a[ong with RaLphieand his hardcore punkcrew, Squatter Rot.

Butthe EighthStreet scene was significant because it markedthe emergenceof a moremjL- itant,youthful and openty contentious squatting movement. Not onty did they open[y defy the city by takingover the buildings,they went against the otderhousing advocates in the neighborhood,who already had their dibs on someof thosetenements.

"EighthStreet vioLated the peacetreaty we hadwith LESCACand the JPC," says Josh Whalen,a writerand defacto squatter (he Lived jn a rentstrjke buiLding for 20 years). "We haddivided the territoryamong us |'ike rivaI gangs, and everyone knew it washands off EighthStreet."

Othersquats cropped up on EastNinth Street, , Thjrd Street, Tenth Street, Fourth Street,Sixth Street, Fifth Street-fueLed by the arrivaIof youngpunks and activists funneL- ing thoughthe oldYippie headquarters at Number 9 BteeckerStreet, the Anarchist Switchboardon EastNinth Street, or the RockAgainst Racjsm concerl network (which was foundedin Engtandby squatter-friendtypunk bands tike The Ctash), as wet[ as young artists lookingto maketheir mark in NewYork. Not atl were newcomers of course. BuLtet Space squaton EastThird Street was founded in 1986by Andrewand PauI Castrucci, twin brothers whohad been priced out of theirart gatleryon AvenueB, andsome members of the HouoinqlSquale )arah Ferguaon

RivingtonSchool art gang,who operated a ratheranarchic metal-sculpture "garden" on an abandonedlot on the cornerof Rivingtonand Forsyth streets. The new arrivals dovetailed I s{,u withthe otderactivists, street dwetters, and tocaI residents pushed out of theirrental apart- r u(r mentsto createan eclectic,dissentious mix.

Morethan just buildinghousing, squatting was seen as an extensionfor otherarenas of socialactivism. There was an earlycrossover between homesteading and the CentralAmerica sotidaritymovement. Activists who had been traveting to war-tornNicaragua and E|' Salvador in the 1980sto buiLdhousing and schools decided to turntheir attention to fixingsome of the bombed-outbuitdings in p|'aces[ike the LowerEast Side, Brooktyn, and the Bronx.Some of the earlymembers of 209East Seventh Street "homestead," for instance,were members of the NicaraguaConstruction Brigade.

Thegrowth of squattingalso coincided with the surgein activismaround homelessness, which,as the crisis mushroomed in 1980s, became something of an"in" cause.Indeed, the moreactivist-oriented squatters such as Morales, English Steve, Thompson, and Atfredo Gonzalezactivety sought to recruithometess people into the squattingmovement by giving workshopsin cityshelters through groups such as the ValentinesDay Committee.

"Wewere organizing against the forced relocation of poorpeople into the shelters,"explains Morates,"and we saw squatting as an antidoteto that." In the process,they also sought to converthousing advocates who remained skeptical of squattingas a meansto createvjable homesfor [ow-incomepeopte. At the time,Morates says, 'Most of the housingpeopte on the left didn'twant to touchsquatting."

Thesquatters even advertised for newrecruits on the backpages of the Villagel/oice ("Need a Home?Squat . . .") andon the WBAIradjo show Listeners' Action, which was then func- tioningas a kjndof cjtizen-[edhomeless relief project in conjunctionwjth the foodpantry at the CathedraIof St.John the Divine.

RecaLLsMorales:

Wegot on the radioand said 'show up at Seventhand B on Saturdaymorning if youwant to work,'and like 50 peoptefrom the tri-statearea would show up, mosttybecause they wanted to volunteerto hetpout. Peoplewould come, otd andyoung, experienced and not, and actually volunteer to shovelrubble or scrapepaint. This one guy came in andorganized a crew of weldersand construc- tion workersto rep[acethe entirestairs in onesquat on EastEighth Street. They just showedup oneday, and after a monthof weekendsworking on it, it was done.

A keyfactor in the expansionof the squattingscene was the creationof EvictionWatch,,an activistphone tree used to fendoff evictionefforts by [oca[police, as wetlas attacks by competinghousing groups and drug dealers. In a movementwithout any centratized struc- ture,Eviction Watch became an importanttooI for networkingwithin the squatsand with supportersin the community.They atso set up a communatkitchen in the groundfloor of KeeieLance

A KadicalTolitical and Sociallietory of the LowerEasf, Side

537East L3th Street to feedpeople using food cutled from dumpsters or donatedfrom Locar tn4 restaurants,which meant that squatterswho djdn't have kitchens could oo cadgea meal whenthey needed to.

"Therewas a Levelof self-organizationin the beginning,and for a whj[e,a kjndof organic connection,"says Morales. "We weren't just inhabitingspace, we were actuatly changing the environment,working it, in a 'freedomjn action'kjnd of way."

YOURHOU1E 19 MINE

At the heightof the movementin 1988-1989,there were about two-dozen squatted buitd- ingson the LowerEast Side, and probabty two dozenmore jn EastHartem, Washington Heights,and the SouthBronx. White the squatsuptown were more cohesive[y working ctass androoted in theircommunities of cotor,the sceneon the LowerEast Side was more coun- terculturaland provocative, as renderedin the iconicftyers that plasteredthe nabe,from Johnthe Communist'spredictions of imminentmartjal law to MissingFoundation screeds Like"The Party's 0ver," "Your House Is Mjne,"and "i.988 = 1.933."

Howeverhyperbolic, such rhetoric reflected how severe gentrification had become on the LowerEast Side. By the wjnterof 1,984,sma|.[ cockroach-infested apartments that rentedfor $400a monthwere suddenty, with minor renovations, going for $1200 and up-thanks in targepart to the NYPD's"0peration Pressure Point," when scores of officersrounded up an astounding1.4,000 drug suspects over 18 months.Stripped of its mostviolent and brazen drugtrade, Alphabet City went from being one of the poorestareas jn the cityto oneof the most"up andcoming." Increasing numbers of etderlyand Latinos were driven from thejrrent-controlled units through a combinationof iLLegatbuyouts, harassment, and denial of servicesas [andtords emptied buiLdings in orderto drjveup their resate vatue. Whote buitdingswere warehoused vacant while the streetsbecame flooded with homelesspeopte - refugeesof the crackepidemic, the closingof statemental hospitals, Reagan-era crack- downson wetfareand social services, and an insanerentaL market that meantone stip and youwere out the door.21

Themore mititant squatters saw themsetves as establishinga kind of beachheadagainst gentrification-their presencebrought neighboring property vatues down - andagitated insidethe parkwith ratliesand smoke-ins and punk concerts, atong with frequent marches to the Localoffices of the city'sDepartment of HousingPreservation and Devetopment (HPD).Influenced by thetheory of SpatiaID andthe transfer of authorityover homeless sheltersto FEMA,John "the Communist" Potak and severaI others formed the Emergency CoalitionAgainst Martial Law and began protesting everything from potice bruta[ity and AIDSto the sheltersystem while ca[[ing for massrent strikes. Indeed, Jerry Wade says he andPotak fantasized about buitding an Amerjcanversion of the ChristianjaFree State, the counterculturalmecca buil,t by Danishsquatters who took over an areaof desertedarmy barracksin Copenhagen.22 "Johnand I hadaLways wanted to attractradicaI hippies," says Wade of histhrowback ide- atism."There was a realconscious effort to bringin hippies,but by that tjme,there just Loueinq/SquaLe

Sarah Fergueon wasn'tenough hippies around anymore in the neighborhood,sowe settted for punks.We

usedto recrujtpeopte off AvenueA." n mn t {3il} Butasjde from a fewtussLes with [oca[precinct cops, the anti-police-staterhetoric remained moreof a paranoidgloss on the scene than any real guiding ethos. Beyond the djehard radi- ca[s,most fotks were more DIY (do it yoursetf)than ardently anarchist, too busyscrapping to makea living,make art andbuitd their homes than to seekout confrontationswith oo[ice. ..A RIOT19 NOWIN PROOREggIN TOMPKINg9QUARE'23

Thatchanged with the police riot of August6, 1988.0n thatnight, John the Communjst's andMissing Foundation's predictions of imminentmartiaI Law appeared to cometrue as more than400 cops stormed through Tompkins Square and jts surroundingstreets, brutal[y club- bingprotesters and bystanders indiscrjminatety. It was atmost as if the neighborhood's historywas caught on repeat,things accelerated out of controlso quickly,subsuming the jmmedjatetriggers -gentrification, displacement, the effortto ctampdown on the area's anything-goescounterculture -into thisvotati[e, epochaL event that wou[dresonate for yearsto come.

Theostensibte cause of the riot wasthe impositjonof a 1 a.m.curfew in TompkinsSquare in responseto neighboringresidents' comptaints about rowdy reveters spiLling out of the bars alongAvenue A andhotding late-night "concerts" jnsjde the park.But underlying that were growingtensions over the waygentrification was undermining the multiculturalbase of the neighborhood.The previous summer, a p[an by the Parksdepartment to closeTompkins SquaretemporariLy to make repairs and discourage revelers was rejected by the locaIcommu- nity boardafter some complained it was a city ptotto promotereal estate specutation. So whenthe curfewcropped up unexpectedlyin the midstof a powerfuLheat wave jn 1988,it put even[oca[ dog-walkers on edge.

Activists,squatters among them, saw the curfewas another effort to tamethe LowerEast Sidefor a wealthierctass of peopte.The mjLitants were apoplectic. This was an invasjonof theirturf, an effortby the policeand reaL estate developers to assertcontroL over the "peo- pte's"park, to remakeits rough,unsocialjzed edges into somethingmore akin to Union Square.

Someof thesesquatters and activists had fought to saveAdam Purp[e's renowned Garden of Edenfrom the city'sbulldozers and were involved in a campaignto preserveLa Ptaza Cultura[,a community-til.Led park on EastNinth Street, which was then slated to becomea seniorcitizen home.

Theyput out leafletscalling on the communityto resist.But the reactjonof boththe cops andthe communitywent beyond even the mostparanoid mititants' wet dreams, as the battle ragedin the streetstiI dawnwjth a furynot seenjn decades.No doubt most of the thug- gerycame from the police,who were ctearly spoiting for a fight afterbeing forced to retreat fromthe parkthe previousweekend. 0n July30, when a sma[Lcontingent of 9th Precjnct Keeielance

A KadicalTolihical and Social lietory of rhe LowerEast eide

policearrived to breakup a midnightralty calted to opposethe curfew,they were beaten backby a hajLof bottles.Five potice were injured jn scuffles,including one who suffered a brokenwrist, and four peopte were charged with feLonies, among them Jerry Wade, who had helpedspark the meleeby sprayinga [ineof policewith a canof shakenbeer.24

In the foLlowingdays, Wade and other LocaI agitators recat[ that copsdriving on patroL wouLdstow down to threaten,"We're gonna get you guys on Saturdaynight."

"It wasalmost Like a gangfight," says Morales. "Everyone knew there was gonna be a showdownon Saturdaynight."

Sti[[,no oneexpected that po[icewouLd arrive wjth their badges covered, futly prepared to bustheads, or that theywould be ca[|.ed out in suchprovocatjve numbers -including about30 mountedpolice on horseback,sharpshooters on neighboring rooftops, a mobite commandpost, and a heticopterthat swoopedmenacingly over the crowds.(Fifty-three peoplewere injured over the courseof the night,inctuding 14 cops,3]. were arrested, and L2Lcomplaints of poticebrutality and excessive force were [odged.)

AtthoughMayor Koch and Police Commissioner Ben Ward initiaLLy sought to b[amethe rjot on "skjnheadsand degenerates from Scarsdale," most in the crowdthat nightwere simpty loca[swho Liked to hangout in the parkor folksspiLling out of nearbybars and restaurants on a hotSaturday night. By staging such a massivedisplay of forceand brutally charging the crowd,the policemanaged to galvanize[arge numbers of locaIresidents and bystanders whojoined the miLitantsbLocking traffic atong chanting"Pigs Go Home!"

Butjf the rjot hadnot beenptanned, there's no questionthat some'inthe crowdhel,ped escalatethe confrontatjonby settingoff M-80firecrackers and chucking bottles at potice. Therehad atready been an informaLcampaign of "propertydevaLuation" by some on the scene.Random acts, [ike leaving a quarterstick of dynamiteunder a parkedcop car to btow out the windows,were not unheardof backthen. The week before the riot,cops and local [andtordswere set on edgeby Leaftetsplastered on doorwaysthe nightbefore the riot,vow- ing to "burndown" the housesof al"tthose who supported the curfew.An absurdthreat, no doubt,but provocativenonethetess.

Atthoughthe rjot wasnot tedby squattersand anarchists, it hetped propeI thejr cause into the timetight.Media crews swarmed into the neighborhoodseeking to uncoverthe "shad- owy"world east of AvenueA, andmany returned with sympatheticjf sensationalized por- traitsof the scrappyfotks who'd turned rubble-fitted tenements into homes.And, as in the 1'874park riot, the 1988riot aLsohetped radicatize the surroundingcommunity, which now fettjtself under assautt from City HaLL. SuddenLy residents of the ChristodoraHouse -the luxurycondominjum building on AvenueB andNinth Street that hadbecome a hatedsym- bol of gentrification-were visitingthe parkwjth carepackages for the hometess.RudoLf Piper,the ownerof the Tunnelnightclub in Chelseawho'd gotten battered by the copsdur- ing the riot,appeared on newsbroadcasts denouncing "yuppie" invaders. Boostedby swettingnumbers of supporters,the moremilitant squatters and agitators steppedup their resjstance in the park."We decjded to squatthe park,"says Morales of the loueinqlSquate SarahFerauoon

campaignthey led to encourageand defend the growing hometess encampment in Tompkins Square."It wasa conscjouseffort to reconfigurethe natureof the park,and also make thjs ^]!* rol morethan symbo[ic protest against the lack of housingand horribte conditions in thesheL- is'f ters,"Morales says.

Johnthe Communistand Jerry the Peddlererected a teepeeon oneof the centraIgreens emblazonedwith the slogan,"Free the Land!"They and others promoted the parkencamp- mentas both a refugefor the homelessand a kindof firewa[[against further gentrification eastof AvenueA. Protestingin the park,they betieved, wouLd draw heat away from their buiLdings.

In retrospect,Morates concedes this notionof staginga long-termencampment in the park wasnot sustainable-especially as the city beganreferring more and more homeless people, ev'ictedfrom other parks and public spaces, to TompkinsSquare. "It createdan untenable situatjonfor us.It wasa contradiction,"Morales says of the tent citythat woutdswe[[ to nearly400 peopLe. And many squatters steered away from the parkbattle, seeing it asa dis- tractionfrom the hardwork they needed to accomplishin theirbuitdings. But initially there wasa lot of supporton the LowerEast Side for the "handsoff the hometess"stance. For a brjefwindow of time(1988-1991), Tompkins Square was redefined, locally and even nation- aLly,as a "symbolof resjstanceto gentrification."

WARIN THE NEIOHBORHOOD

Butwhi[e the parkriot hetpedwin supportfor the squatters'cause, it aLsoamped the [eve[ of confrontationwith po[ice,setting off a cycteof jncreasingl"ymiLitarized battles as the city movedin to djvestthis poputation of "thjevesand troublemakers" from its buiLdings.

Thefirst casuaLty was Tya Scott's squat on EastEighth Street, whjch the citycondemned aftera butldozer"accidentally" nicked the frontfaqade while clearing the remainsof an abandonedtenement next door. What began as a rush-jobdemolition turned into a six-hour standoffas supporters, mobiLjzed by EvictionWatch, rushed to Tya'sbuitding in the earty hoursof Apri[L, 1989.I canrecaLl a mobof about20 squattersand incensed loca[s rushing at the plywoodconstruction fence wielding a poticebarrjcade as a batteringram, storming pastthe astonishedbeat cops posted to defendthe demotitioncrew [ike a hordeof crazed Vikings.

Thefight over 319 East Eighth Street- whenthe city useda firein the buiLdingas a pre- text for eviction- waseven more Escape From .In my notesof the period,I find thiseffort to accountfor the poticepresence assembted on May9, 1989:

95cops on AvenueB 30 copsat 8th andC 33cops at 9th andC 33cops at 7thand B 13 mountedpolice at 9th andC 5 policewith dogsat 9th andB

E KeeisLance

A KadicalTolitical and Social tlieNory of the LowerEaet Side

3?sharpshooters on rooftops, guarding lot on 7th

I E-i !{ 1.bustoad of copsat 8th (about30 inside),2 emptypotice busses on C 3 poticemedja vans

In fact,more than 400 police were dispatched to maintaina compLetecordon around two city btocksfor fivedays as the demotitioncrew worked round the clock,using high-powered kl.iegLights that tit up the bLockLjke a movieset, as a giantwrecking ball slammed into the buitding,sending up giantplumes of dust.The massive police overkill and expense (the demolitioncosts alone were estimated at $600,000)prompted cries of outragefrom no Less thanCathotic Archbishop John Cardinal 0'Connor, EpiscopaI Archbishop Michael Kendat[, and ManhattanBorough President . The scene was easily cast as a Davidand Goliathnarrative of squattersstruggling to createhomes versus the city bureaucratsintent on crushingthem.

Justtwo weekseartier, the squattersat 3L9had managed to subvertthe city'sdemolition plans.There was the grandheroism of Wittie,a gayman who moved to 319after being madehometess by AIDS.He sauntered past the police[ines and scated the fireescape to reclaimthe building,dumping bottles of fermentedpiss from the roofthat sentthe cops anddemolition workers running for cover.Then a ragtagcrew [ed by Moraleslassoed the constructjonscaffotding and yanked it down,as city officialslooked on jn disbeljef.

Despitethe unorthodoxtactics, this mediagenicvictory earned the squatterssome popular supporl,as we[[ as the heLpof somearchitects from the PrattInstitute, who argued the buitdingcoutd be saved. So when the cityimposed a stateof virtualmartial Law on the neighborhood,with policeoccupying neighboring rooftops for daysand forcing residents to showID to entertheir own buildings, it hadeven co-op owners voicing conspiracy theories.

Lookingat mynotes of the streetprotests, what's striking is howradicaI the sentiments expressedby locatresidents were. Standing on the policebarricades, with bottlesftying and M-80sexptoding in the distance,I interviewed a man who lived at a recentlyco-oped buildingat 323East Eighth Street who said his bedroom had been damaged by the demoti- tion at 319.A nurseat BethIsrael hospital, he was trying to reasonwjth the cops."I'm sickof privatecapital getting everything it wants,and what makes America great getting screwed,"he responded when asked why he was out theredemonstrating. "The thing that makesNew York such a greatplace is the varietyof tifestyles.It's a beautifuIgarden, and theywant to tearit downand make it into a homogenous,climate-controlted, ptastic-turfed lawn."

Famedattorney Witliam Kunstler, who was then defending the squatters,declared: "There areseeds of rebetlionhere, people pushed to theirouter [imits. What coutd be morecom- peLLingthan homeless people taking over an abandoned building?"

Kunstler'slaw partner, Ron Kuby, was even more emphatic: 'A thousandyears of property lawsays the buildjngsare for the owners.There's no commonlaw for squattersin the U.S. Butif youget a massmovement, the lawswi[[ fottow. We saw that in the CiviIRights move- ment." Houoinql9quate SarahFergueon

PYRRHICVICTORY? 15S RonKuby's prediction did not cometrue. But back then the riotsand street protests reatty felt Likemini epics. The actjvists were emboldened by the neighborhood'shistory-even if withinthe LowerEast Side there were often profound disputes between squatters and com- munityhousing groups that tendedto splitatong generationa[ [ines. The fotks who had helpedsquat the in the late'60swith the BLackPanthers and Young Lords,and who took over an abandoned schooI in 1.979to createthe CHARAS/EI Bohio com- munitycenter on EastNinth Street, now saw this newgeneratjon of squattersas irresponsi- b[e,revolutionary wannabes pl,aying a game in a placewhere the stakeswere too high.The competitionfor cheaphousing was fierce. What gave some twenty-something artist or cot- Legedrop-out the right to copa crashpad and rumb[e with the police when there were wholefamities doubled and tripled up in the projectswith no ptaceto go?The squatters wastedbuitdings, they said. They passed out wjththeir candles lit andLet thejr houses burn down.They were parasites dancing amid the truty urban poor.

Forthe squatters,the housingadvocates were pimps and sett-outs who'd traded in theirradi- calroots for careersspent grappling with a bureaucracyintent on dispensingcrumbs at best. Theiranswer to the housingcrisis was the 50/50plan -a compromisethat squatterssaid woutdonly fuel gentrification and displacement by sanctioningnew market rate housing nextto lowincome rehabs.

Yetthe two frontsreinforced each other, despite their differences. The housing advocates on the LowerEast Side had aLways operated to the left of the basetinepoLitic that governedthe restof Manhattan.That changed wjth the 1991etection to the CityCounciI of Antonio Pagan,a neo-conDemocrat who upset the longtimeliberal incumbent Miriam Friedlander. Paganbecame a darlingof the ManhattanInstitute, a conservativethink tank, for seekingto curbthe excessesof NewYork liberatism that the LowerEast Side had come to epitomize. Backedby the poticeunion, he rodeto poweron a campaignto evictthe hometessfrom the park,roust the anarchistsand squatters, and stop tetting the areabe a "dumpingground" for socialservices. His election coincided with the dramaticclosing of the parkfor a two- yearrenovation that wouldpermanently ctear the homelessshantjes and estabtish the 12 a.m.curfew that remainsin placetoday.

ThisfinaI rectamation of Tompkins Square pretty much cLosed the bookon the park'slegacy asa cautdronof unrest.It wasfotlowed by paramilitaryeviction assaults on five East13th Streetsquats, spearheaded by Pagan, who pitted "lazy" squatters against a schemeto use low-incometax creditsto renovatethe buitdingsfor more"deserving" poor. In i.995,the citywent so far as to sendin sharpshootersand an armoredpersonnel carrier to evictthe squatters,who wetded themsetves inside the buiLdings.(Most were booted out then,though a lawsuitaltowed residents to remainin threeof the buil.dingsuntit ].996, when the police againforcefully evicted everyone, and the buil,dingswere gutted.)

Theuse of tax creditsto produce[ow-income housing reflects the triumphof market-based strategiesfor urbanrenewal over the otdstate-sponsored model of subsidizedhousing - not

- -41 KesisLance

A KadicalTolirical and SocialHielory of the LowerEaot Side

to mentionany lingering idealism about grassroots sweat equity. WhiLe Pagan lambasted r6* the 13thStreet homesteaders asprivileged troubtemakers who "treat the wholeneighbor- hoodas a radjcalRomper Room," the not-for-profitorganization he directed, Lower East SideCoatition Housing Development, made out quitenicety: LESCHD owns and manages the formerL3th Street squats as low and moderate-income housing. (After leaving office, Pagan returnedto LESCHDasa "staffanalyst.")

WouldPagan's and City Halt's campaign to evjctthe squatshave been so successful had the actjvistsnot spentso muchtime -and potiticaIcapital-fighting to defendTompkins Squareand the homelessencampment there? There's no questionthat the increasingty squatidconditions brought by hundredsof needypeopte occupying the playgroundsand lawnswjthout proper sanitation and services -combined with the parkwarrjors' often inanelyprovocative efforts to recreatethe 1988police rjot - underminedcommunity sup- port.Looking back, even hardtjners Like Morates and Harrington concede that the squatters invo[vedin the parkcause couLd have made more concrete gains by focusingon upgrading thejrbuitdings rather than scrapping with potice."We were so integrated with the jssuesof genocideand racism in the shelters,we cou|'dn't separate it," saysMoraLes of the sociaL struggtearound the park.

"If the squatscene hadn't happened, the parkbattle wouLdn't have happened," concludes Harrington."It waspart of whatwe were about, bringing people in off the streetsand into the squats.So the homelesssituation in the parkwas part and parcel with the wholesquat- ting movement."

Indeed,the 1988riot andsubsequent park battles hetped inspire Tent City, a groupof for- merpark dwetlers, who marched on Washingtonto demandhousing and attempted their ownbuilding takeovers on the LowerEast Sjde. [See Section Three, Chapter 2, "TentCity" by RonCasanova.]

Butthe effortto integratestreet peopte, many with drugand atcohoL probtems, into the oftenanarchjc and contentious world of squattingproved far moredjfficult to achjeve. "Mostof the fstreet]people who came through and did okaywould clean up their act and thenmove on," says Harrington. "They rea[Ly didn't want to stayliving in the buildings. 0therswe took in -quite oftenI thjnkwe did them a disservice.We were so radicalthen, we neverbetieved in gettingpeopte services, and some of thesepeopte rea[[y did need that.They had real substance abuse or mentaLheaLth problems, or I mean,some of them couldn'teven really read and yet weweren't really prepared to dealwith that. It waslike, graba hammerand start buitding a waL[,and they just couLdn'tfucking do it. They'dhang aroundgetting fucked up. And then they'd steal a cameraor something,and we'd throw themout." Sarah Feraueorr J

GOING LEGAL I fil Stil,L,the factthat peoplewould even attempt such a socialexperiment is significant.The yearsof costtypark battles and squat evictions undoubtedly hetped convince the cityto [egalize11 of the dozenremaining Lower East Side squats, which are now in the processof becoming[ow-income co-ops.2s

Thesesquatters are the survivors,the onesthat managedthrough a combinationof luckand hard-wonexperience, to hotdtheir ground. That the Giulianiadministratjon in its finalyear in officewould ever agree to grantthem title to theirbuil,dings is a reflectionof howditi- genttymany worked to restorethe bujldingsand rehab thejr living spaces -some of which nowlook better than your average co-op. Bloomberg officials, who finalized the dealin September2002, said they were motjvated by the factthat the squattingscene had "matured"over the years and had come to includea moreraciatly diverse popuLation of fam- iliesand peopte with stabtejobs - blithetyoverlooking the factthat manywere the same rabbterousersthe city hadfought with for so manyyears. They'd simply grown up a bit. But legaIobservers say the city musthave also realized that if it movedto evictthese squatters in court,it woutdhave risked Losing and thereby codifying the rightto takeadverse posses- sionof city propertiesin a waythat coutdhave dramaticaLLy expanded the rightsof squat- terselsewhere in the city.

Butwhile the city hasceded them the buiLdingsfor a do[[arapiece, the squattersmust bring themup to codewithout any of the governmentgrants afforded to the homesteadersof the '80s,let alonethe heftytax breaksthat for-profitdevel"opers receive for settingaside a por- tionof theirapartments to [ow-jncomepeopte. And the squatters are not aLtowed to se[Lor renttheirspaces for profit. So in a sense,they are being charged with creating permanent low-incomehousing, without any of the subsjdjesthat bothdevetopers and not-for-profit housinggroups normaL|'y receive.

The11 buildingshave formed a newcoaUtion to negotiatewith UHAB,which is overseeing the financingand renovation process. But outside of that formalunity, these days the "squatters'"fights are largely internal. They are reconciling their space wjthin the system, tradingin freerent for the promiseof security,whiLe battling to keepthe banks,contractors andUHAB from driving up their mortgages. WhiLe UHAB initiaLLy p[edged to keepthe month- [y maintenancecharges Low-$300 to $750depending on apartmentsize-many fear mount- ing rehabcosts wit[ become a mechanismfor pushingthe poorand more dysfunctionaI out.

Meanwhile,fights have emerged as the nowlegal homesteaders struggle to cometo terms wjth whatreaI ownership of theirspaces means. If oneperson doesn't pay, who does?

In thesame vein, many of the neighborhood'scommunity gardens, which were started on squatted[and, have won preservation. They are now workjng to setup bylawsand boards of governance,contending with jnsurance tiabiLities -aL[ the formalizingelements that consti- tute propertyownership. Reeielance

A KadicalTolitical and SociallioLorv of trheLower East Side

MeanwhiLe,a new urban renewal ptan is reshapingthe community,this onespearheaded by the CooperSquare Committee. The same progressive housing group that defeatedRobert Moses'scheme to mowdown btocks of tenementsfor upscatehousing has just levetedthe old Cuandocommunity center on the cornerof SecondAvenue and , along withfour hjstoric toft buitdingson the -includinga former brotheI and saloon occupiedby feministauthor Kate Mj|.[et. These properties were sacrificed to makeway for 700-unitsof newhousing, just 25 percentof whichwil,l, be dedicated to lowand moderate incomepeopLe. The rest of the housing,which includes a 14-storyhousing compLex on the cornerof Houstonand Bowery, wi[[ be luxuryapartments, inctuding 200,000 square feet set asidefor commerciaIspace, where a WhoLeFoods is slatedto open.

Thereare stiL[ a fewcountercultural venues left in the nabe,such as ABC No Rio, Btuestockingsbookstore, and the moreavowedly Lefty May Day Books, housed at the Theaterfor the NewCity on FirstAvenue. There's aLso an effortto resuscitatethe East Village's"legacy of counterculture"via the HOWL!Festival, a week-Long celebration of the arts-though onewonders whether this effortwitt onty succeed in reinforcingthe kindof hackneyednostalgia and countercultural boutiquing that haveovertaken places [ike Woodstock,renderinq radicalism a tourist attraction, detached from its roots.

Butthe notionof organizingaround space as a locusfor politicaIstruggte no longer applies.Poljtical organizing these days centers on the wat the media,the corporateco[o- nizatjonof the g|.obe.The players and batttes are far-flung and transitory by nature.There arestilL locaI struggles, such as the campaignto blocka proposed23-story luxury tower on HoustonStreet by [ocaIresidents who fear it wil.l.inundate the areaand hasten gentrifica- tion,or the ongoingeffort to rectaimthe old CHARAS/EIBohio community center on East NinthStreet, where the newowner has proposed buil.ding a L9-story dorm. (In an ironic twist,these days the fotkspetitioning in TompkinsSquare are residents of the Christodora House,including penthouse owner Mjchael Rosen, who developed the swank Red Square apartmentcomplex on HoustonStreet in the late'80s,and who now speaks earnestty about the needto preservethe "sanctity"of neighborhoodagainst high-rise incursions.)

Sti[|',these are defensive, rear-guard tactics. The idea of takingor reclaimingproperty and usingthat asa basefor furthersociaI agitation is gone.Unl,ike the young idea[ists of the '60s,'70s,and'80s, it seemsun[ikely that the current crop of newcomersto the LowerEast Sjdewould atign themsetves with anyneighborhood-wide struggte against gentrification.26 TheEast Viftage's identity has already been subsumed jnto the gridof Manhattanreal estate.It's no [ongeran is[andof diversityor culturaIresjstance but an "entertainmentdis- trict" (to useCity Hall's phrase)-a trendy theme park of bars,restaurants, and chic bou- tiqueswhose shifting aesthetics look more to LA,Tokyo, Paris, or Berlinrather than any- thingindigenousty Loisaida, whatever that is. (Theneighborhood was always such a con- catenationof cutturesand inf[uences. it becomes harder to pin downwhat that essential Loisaidaspirit ever was.)

Theatomjzatjon of sociaIstruggle on the LowerEast Side reftects the sp[interingof com- munitiesand workplaces brought on by gtobalization.For relative "old-tjmers" ljke me, thereis a sensethat the spiritof the LowerEast Side has been hoftowed out, tloueinq/9quaNe SarahFergueon

deconcentrated.The old romanceof the EastVitlage as a harborfor outcasts,fuck-ups, and artistswas defeated by the militaristicincursions of the Giuljaniadministration, foLlowed "'bv t the ethosof marketefFiciency embodied in the Bloombergadministration, for wh;;;.; 3 frffi smokingcigarettes in a baror catchinqa napon the subwayis consjdereda tjcketable offense.

Bohemiasare predicated on cheaprents and free time, the timeto mixit up with people froma[[ races and cLasses and transgress sociaI barriers, and so reinventone's retationship to the wortd.Without cheap rents, there is nofree time. Kids working four jobs to payfor a crampedbedroom in a $2400a month,Ikea-furnished apartment don't have the luxuryof suchfree-floating jnteraction. Starbucks becomes their living room, Barnes and NobLe their Library,the barsa fietdfor networkingand setf-promotion and/or an escapefrom the get- aheadgrind. Fighting the systemis a wasteof time;the strugg[enow js to havea stakein it.

Manyof the old-guardrebels and rads are now raising famities or haveescaped to upstateor Vermont,ptaces where free minutes don't onLy come with cell,phone plans. But those of us wholived through this period of sociaIupheavaI in the neighborhoodneed to rememberand celebratethe idealism,however flawed, that fuetedthe movementto "tiberate"and defend the LowerEast Side. The idea that peoptehave a rightto housingprovides a checkto the dehumanizingmarket fundamentalism of our times.

"It wasliminal space," says David Boyte, reflecting on the bombed-outlandscape that he encounteredon the LowerEast Sjde in the early'80s."The property was neither here nor there.It wasn'tquite controll,ed by the governmentor contestedby the [andlordswho walkedaway from it. That'sthe spacein whichchange takes place, Lhe kjnd of spacethat's importantfor revolutionaryideas to comeforward.

"Backthen, the LowerEast Side was an incubator,but it djdn't[ast. It wasatready becoming a constrictiveenvironment," Boyte continues. "If you'regonna change the world,you're not goingto changeit by hangingout on the LowerEast Side and taLking to the samepeople, becausethe LowerEast Side is notthe world.In factit sortof hasan entropyabout jt."

AutholsNote: This essay began as an effortto reassesswhy the battlesover Tompkins Squore Parkmattered, given that there'sso little battlingover it now.That inquiry led inevitabtyto the strugglesby variousgroups to claimturf on the LowerEast Side, from the earLyhomestead- erswho took over abondoned tenements ond founded community gardens in forsakenlots, to the squatters,who did the somebut wererendered outLaws when the city cancelledits home- steadingprogram. This remains an incompletesurvey of a complexsocial movement that evolvedover time. Left out orethe voicesof the manyquiet doers and artists,women and mothers,professionols and laborers whose hard work succeeded in preservingthe buitdings.I Ieavethat explorationto anotherchapter. Keeielance

A KadicalToliNical and SocialHistorv of r,heLower East Side

Endnotes:

I *'.iZL 1. Quotedby BiLLWeinberg in "TompkinsSquare Park and the LowerEast Side Legacy of RebetHon."Downtow, February74,7990.

2. Reportof the Nationa[Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders (New York: Bantam Books, 1968), chapters 10- t /.

3. Threemen were'in fact arrested and convicted for Ward'smurder, which prosecutors deemed a streetrob- berygone awry. The shooter was sentenced to 15-yearsto [ife,and his two accompticespted guilty to charge: of manslaughterand robbery for theirrote, and for robbingsomeone etse a blockaway just priorto Ward's kitting.Neverthetess, Ward's frjends and supporters in the housingmovement, who conducted their own wide._, publicizedinvestigation of the case,contjnued to insjstthat she had been assassjnated for her work, noting thatshe had been harassed and received phone catts threatening her with bodi[y harm. [See: "3 SEMen Ptea: Guiltyto Murderof HousingActivist," by A[ Kamen,Woshington Post, November 1.7, 1.981.; "Man Gets JaiI jn Actjvist'sDeath," by A[ Kamenand Benjamin Wejser, Washington Post, March 10, 1982.]

4. WorldWor 3 llLustrated.No. 6,7986

5. Muchwas made out of thefact that in 1987,the Federa[Emergency Management Agency (FEMA)- which wasestabtished in 1979to overseedomestjc security and relief in the eventof naturaIand nuctear disasters and/orwartime emergencies-was atso put in chargeof administeringfederat hometess relief efforts estab- tishedby the StewartMcKinney Act of 1987,which codified the rightto shetter.Former mititary bases and prisonswere retrofitted as homelessshelters. prompting fears of newfederal "Bantustans" for the poor.

6. Thjshistorical overview draws heavily from Bit[ Weinberg's " and the LowerEast Side Legacyof RebeL[ion,"cjted eartier, as wetl as Marci Reaven and Jeanne Houck, '? Historyof TompkinsSquare Park,"pub[ishedinFromUrbanVillagetoEastVillage,JanetL.Abu-Lughod,ed.(Cambridge:Btackwe[tPress, 1994),pp. 81-98.

7. MarioMafh, Gatewoy to the PromisedLand: Ethnic Cultures on NewYork's Lower East Side, (Amsterdam Monographsin American Studies, L994), p.33.

8. ChristopherMele, The Selling of the LowerEast Side: Culture, Real Estote, ond Resistancein (Universityof MinnesotaPress, 2000), p. 58.

9. PhiLipFoner, The Labor Movement in the UnitedStates, lzol. 1 (NewYork: International Publishers, 1978), :. 448.Quoted by NeiLSmith, Ihe NewUrban Frontier: Gentrificotion ond the RevonchistCity (New York: Routledge,1996), p. 11.See atso Raven and Houck.

10.Reaven and Houck, pp. 87-88.

11.See Mele, chapter 3 andSmith, chapter 1.

12.Smith, p. 21.

13.The name "East Vil.Lage" was first promotedby realestateinterests during the 1960sin an effortto rein- ventthe areanorth of HoustonStreet as a fashionabtedestination, and disassociate it from the imageof the LowerEast Side as a workingclass slum.

14. RosatynDeutsche and Cara Gendel Ryan, "The Fine Art of Gentrification,"in ThePoftable Lower Eost Side Votume4, Number1, Spring1987; online at http:www.abcnorio.org/about/history/fine-art.html

15. RonatdLawson, "Tenant Responses to the UrbanHousing Crisis, 1970-1984," The Tenant Movement in Ne,, YorkCity, 1904-1984 (Rutgers University Press, 1986); ontine at http://www.tenant.net/Community/ history/histO5b.html..John Ka[ish, "Urban Agricutture is Workingin the Middleof Manhattan,"The Aquaian, June25, 1980. /ouein4/9quate )arah Ferauoon J

16.Intervjews wjth CarolAbrams, spokesperson for the Departmentof Housing,Preservation and Development August22, 2002;and Howard Brandstejn, who besides being a homesteaderwas the formerdirector of the Home0wnership Project for CatholicCharities, Archdiocese of New York. l SS 17.According to Va[0rsetU, executive director of the CooperSquare MutuaI Housing Assocjatjon and a former memberof the JPC,the JPCand CB3 forced the city to providefunds upfront to do the [ow-incomerehabs first. The1000 new units of market-rateunits were never buitt. "We purposety setected the sitesfor that market-rate housingthat were next to lowincome housing. 5o they never happened. We did not knowat thetime that that woutdmake them that unattractive,but that'swhat happened." (Interview with 0rse[ti,May 2004)

18.According to East7th Streetresidents, those buitdings were then being run by a "MaBarker-type" woman andher drug-deating sons.

19.This is Boyte'sversion of the story.According to JimmyStewart, a streetpeddLer and electrjcian who first movedinto the FifthStreet squat in 1,982,what he and his partner "Web" objected to wasBoyte's effort to "takeover" the buitding.(Interview with Stewart,June 1.4, 2004.)

20. Brandsteinreca[[s that RAINrejected the 13thStreet squatters because they were for the mostpart white - a commonif somewhatexaggerated atlegation made by housingadvocates, who tended to overtookminority participation.0ther 13th Street squatters say they rejected ORE and Boyte's leadership because they viewed hjmas a "takeoverartist" out to establishownership of the buiLdingsfor himsetf,or becausethey did not believegoing with RAINwould give them control of theirbuildings.

21.According to Censusfigures, 14.5 percent of the Latinopoputation on the LowerEast Side teft between 1980and 1990.

22.It wouldbe wrong to overptayECAMA's fottowing; for the mostpart the groupwas a frontfor Johnthe Communist'sone-man propaganda machine and offered a caricatureof resistanceto oppression.But JTC was expertat showingup at atl the demonstrationswith big,brightl.y painted banners and stacks of ftyersbearing a mixof angrydenunciations of the policecoltaged with ctippingsof the latestgovernment atrocity against the poor.

23.This was the headtineused in the 1874edition of the NerazYork Graphic, cited in AndrewCastrucci's lour HouseIs Mine,Bullet Space Coltective, 1993.

24.Ihatsame night, Wade and severaI other activists had been jnvited to appearwith rabid tatk show host MortonDowney at Downey'snightclub act in midtown.They arrived at the parkaround midnight, drunk, pumpedand bearing several cases of beer.

25.One other longstanding homestead on East7th Streetrefused to enterinto the dealand hence remains in legal[imbo.

26.This chapter was written before the currentmovement to rezonethe LowerEast Side to [imit hiqh-rise incursions.It remainsto beseen how wetl residents wit|' unite around that.

IT