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Giuliani's 10' fence around City Hall Park
12/7/98
The Fence Around City Hall Park is an Affront to
Every New Yorker
Dear Editor,
Mayor Giuliani has finally outdone himself in the arrogance category. After
losing numerous lawsuits involving the right to speak, demonstrate or hold press
conferences on the steps of City Hall Park or in the park itself the Mayor now
has the entire park surrounded by a ten foot high chain link fence. Parks Commissioner
Stern, a fawning Giuliani loyalist if ever there was one, would have us believe
it’s just part of a scheduled park renovation. That would be like Stalin justifying
the Berlin Wall as postwar reconstruction. I suggest that like the Berlin Wall,
New Yorkers make this fence a medium of expression and a new public forum from
which to show our disgust with Mayor Giuliani and his ever-evolving police state.
Earlier today I used the fence and the concrete barricades surrounding the park
as a display easel for my anti-Giuliani portraits. Police Commissioner Safir
happened to pass my display with some visiting dignitaries and looked like he
was a about to explode. The time to politely apply for permits to speak, march,
hold a sign or hand out a few leaflets in front of the seat of New York City
government is over. Let’s make the sidewalk and fence around City Hall Park
the stage from which to overthrow Giuliani-ism in1999.
Robert Lederman, President of A.R.T.I.S.T.
(Artists’ Response To Illegal State Tactics)
(718) 369-2111
255 13th St.
Brooklyn, N.Y. 11215
e mail ARTISTpres@aol.com
http://www.openair.org/alerts/artist/nyc.html
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