TWENTY EIGHT YEARS AGO

The environment in NYC, and especially AlphaBet City and surrounding areas, was drastically different. The city had made it clear, its underclasses were to be disowned. Tent Cities had sprung up in local parks. Warehoused and abandoned buildings were siezed and turned into squats by neighborhood residents who had had enough with the empty myth of Upward Mobility and Trickledown Economics. People carved out livings for themselves, however spartan, to a degree and scope that today would be seen as unfathomable.

It was “necessary,” then, for the city to at once save face, and to punish such outright acts of autonomy. And so, after a “mini riot” staged by the NYPD in order to gauge public opinion, the full force of the Men in Blue was let loose on denizens of Tompkins Square Park, who had commited the unforgivable crime of having nowhere else to go, and, by default, on every human being found out past an arbitrary midnight curfew.

The tidal wave of subsequent complaints against the 9th Precinct, who had conscripted personnel from other precincts throughout the city, pale in comparison the the actual bloodshed of that long, hot night. Police on foot, on horseback, and in helicopters descended on the homeless, on visitors to the area, and on those who had just stepped out for some fresh air, Batons were swung, bones were broken, and many were bloodied by individuals who feared no reprisals for their actions, because their badges and identification had been blacked out. Imagine a sea of faceless blue berserkers, issued a simple order to use whatever force deemed necessary to cleanse the late night city streets, and you will only come close to the reality.

The Tompkins Square Park Police Riots were but one in a series of falling dominoes in a process of econimic and cultural whitewashing, which continues, in earnest, to this day. The shortsighted will say, what else is new; neighborhoods always change. But this change is far from organic. When an invading “culture” displaces the life’s blood of a formerly vibrant, inclusive and diverse community, it is nothing short of an act of War.

COME ON DOWN to Tompkins Square Park on August 6th and 7th, and shake hands with the ghosts of those who bled on these streets, and with those who STILL will not be moved.

PERFORMANCES BY

August 6: Saturday (2:00-7:00pm)
> Simon Chardet
> The Coffin Daggers:
> ISM
> Iconicide
> Nihilistics

August 7: Sunday (1:00-6:00pm)
> Jennifer Blowdryer Punk Soul
> Rockaway Bitch
> Love Pirates
> Sewage
> Hammerbrain

Brought to you by The SHADOW, Chris Iconicide, the undying spirit of Uncle Don Yippie and…. THOSE FUCKING ANARCHISTS!!