June 29, 2004
The Battle of Central Park
There is still no place for the big protest during the Republican National Convention. The City is saying that protest group United for Peace and Justice is being unreasonable in wanting to use Central Park and thus making it hard for permits to smaller groups to be issued, with the Mayor saying,
Look, there is one group that is keeping everybody else from getting permits. The name of that group is United for Peace and Justice. They say they want to put together a protest of 250,000 people. Until they come to the table and tell us what they'd like and negotiate something that's in their interest and the city's, we really have a lot of difficulty giving out permits to other people.United for Peace and Justice says that they are willing to use the North Lawn, but the City's excuse is that the police can't really control the crowd at the park. And they think the mayor is stalling as well. Gothamist can't believe that this hasn't been resolved since the problems started at the end of April We mean, we can believe it, but still. But at least protestors will have their bells.
The suggestion from reader Michelle a while back about moving the protest to Times Square sounds better AND it's closer to Penn Station (though Gothamist can understand the protestors wanting an open expanse of space, for a sense of scale). We heard that UPJ rejected 50th Street and the West Side Highway. Where else is there for them to line up? Bryant Park is too small and too pretty...what about a special barge in the river? It's not that far out and would be kind of a great spectacle.
|
Advertisement: Gothamist Continues Below!
Post a comment (Comment Policy)
At least Michael Bloomberg is no longer fatuously suggesting UFPJ use Flushing Meadows / Corona park for the GOP convention protests. Of course, by 2008 Flushing Meadows could be a staging area for transfer to Guantanamo.
"barge on the river"? since when did trent lott get posting privileges on gothamist?
Jen, you wrote of the marchers and the UPJ in the second person plural, "them" and "they". Won't you be joining the UPJ's march?
Last week Gotham Gazette featured alternate views on the Great Lawn debate with Leslie Cagen of UPJ saying protestors deserve Central Park here and former NYC Parks Commissioner Henry Stern saying it's not feasible here. I thought Stern had the upper hand in this argument. Previous protests were on a much different Great Lawn and once you let one political group stage an event there, the city would have to let almost any group do the same any other time.
Well if the city won't honor our right to assemble, more adventurous types can mess with the convention in other ways.
http://www.shadowprotest.org
delay or not, they'll have thier protest or there will be other problems for the city.
So where the hell are all the protestors going to go when they come to NYC? The NYPD is making a big mess out of this. This is going to get ugly...
I'm not looking to either side of the pending convention: in my mind, neither the republicans nor the protestors are welcome here. Actually, its about as appealing as the Olympics, without the (minor) romance of hearing more foreign accents.
Anyway, here's my reason for posting... why in the world are the protestors negotiating where and when they'll be able to protest? Its a fucking protest folks- get out there and fucking protest. Asking for permission and permits seems a little limp-wristed, don't it?
What about closing off Central Park West? That's roughly 50 blocks of street which would also make for good aerial photography.
Gothamist is a-political, though I do remember both Jen and Jake posting tepid support for the war last year in some of the comment threads.