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Giuliani’s New Year’s Gift To Street Artists
The most notable trait of Mayor Rudolph Giuliani is consistency. If you make
it on to his enemies list you are there forever. That’s why even in the midst
of what he is promoting as the “largest celebration in human history”, his apocalyptic
gala for tourists and terrorists in Times Square ominously code-named Project
Archangel, the Mayor still has time to persecute his oldest enemies, New York
City’s street artists.
After a year of releasing false statements to the media about a “compromise”
on the number of streets to be restricted to all forms of vending, the Mayor’s
compliant puppets on the Street Vendor Review Panel [SVRP] have finally released
their list of newly restricted streets, a list which is in fact quite brief.
Its most significant feature is that it appears to be focused not on reducing
locations for the City’s thousands of corporate run food vendors, but on eliminating
the City’s much smaller number of First Amendment protected street artists.
While there are a small number of street artists scattered on blocks throughout
the City, the largest concentrations are on 53rd Street in front of the Museum
of Modern Art, in SoHo on Prince Street and on Fifth Avenue in front of the
Metropolitan Museum of Art. Apart from the Met location which is currently the
focus of a Federal lawsuit, these are the exact locations which the City is
now going to restrict.
I’m often asked why I keep going after Giuliani. “You won your lawsuit in 1996”,
people say. “Now it’s legal for anyone to sell art on the streets of New York
City without a license. Why don’t you just leave the poor man alone?” I wish
it were that simple.
When we won our consolidated street artist lawsuit [Bery et al v City of New
York; Lederman et al v City of New York 95-9089] the 2nd circuit Federal Appeals
court severely criticized the Mayor’s policy as a deliberate violation of the
First Amendment. Giuliani’s appointees had crafted a blatantly illegal policy
of arresting artists and destroying their original art without ever bringing
a single case to trial. Internal memos obtained by the plaintiffs which were
written by the District Attorney’s office and the Corporation Counsel described
a policy that was fully understood to be unconstitutional from the time of the
first arrest. After making more than 700 false arrests of artists and then losing
the case (which Giuliani unsuccessfully appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court in
1997), we thought the Giuliani administration would bite the bullet and finally
leave street artists alone.
Not ex-federal prosecutor Rudy Crueliani. Almost immediately after the court
found the City’s licensing requirement for artists unconstitutional Giuliani’s
680 lawyers got to work and created an almost identical artist permit policy,
which we are still litigating in Federal Court [Lederman et al v Giuliani 98
Civ. 2024 (LMM)]. The case is classic Giuliani, filled with false arrests, violations
of free speech, obstruction of justice, outright lies to the judge about the
most basic facts of City policy and a dogged insistence that it’s all being
done in the name of public safety and quality of life. I and the other plaintiffs
were no longer simply being arrested for selling art without the new permit
but for creating art, demonstrating against the policy and for making anti-Giuliani
speeches.
My own arrests dramatically changed after the first lawsuit. I was no longer
harassed and arrested by low-level peddler squad cops enforcing vending laws.
My arrests were now supervised and personally executed by NYPD captains and
by the NYPD Intelligence Division. The Mayor took particular offense at the
content of my paintings, which began featuring portraits of him as a Hitler-like
dictator and were being carried by protesters in numerous demonstrations against
a wide variety of City policies.
Recently the New York art establishment rallied to the cause of artists’ First
Amendment rights, closing ranks to protect the Brooklyn Museum’s controversial
art show Sensations, which featured a painting of the Madonna decorated with
elephant dung. While I actively participated in the protests and was even arrested
in front of the Brooklyn Museum for carrying a painting of the Mayor with feces
on his forehead titled, “Giuli-Anus”, this clamor for artists’ rights had a
very ironic aspect for myself and the City’s street artists. It was in fact
the very same art establishment which is dominated by real estate interests
that had put Giuliani up to the artist arrest policy in the first place. Galleries
in SoHo, a phony arts organization called the SoHo Alliance, and the City’s
top museums had been demanding artist arrests for years and were thrilled with
Giuliani’s willingness to sweep us all off the streets.
The new street restrictions just approved by the Mayor’s vendor panel were
instigated and lobbied for by some of the same cast of eminent art world advocates.
The SoHo Alliance, a landlord advocacy group masquerading as community activists
which is dominated by City Council Member Katherine Freed, and the Museum of
Modern Art, the Rockefeller museum which boasts the City’s top real estate investors
and Giuliani contributors on its board of directors, were the key petitioners
to the Street Vendor Review Panel requesting that artists be eliminated. Their
petitions are on record at the Street Vendor Review Panel and can be obtained
by contacting the panels legal counsel, Andrew Schwartz (212) 513-6428.
As always, we have no intention of complying with any of the Mayor’s efforts
to restrict or eliminate our rights. Once the New Year is over and everyone
emerges from their millennium bunkers, members of A.R.T.I.S.T. will set up as
always on the exact streets that have been illegally restricted. I will be especially
pleased to stand in front of the Museum of Modern Art displaying my latest portraits
of the Mayor. It’s the very least I can do to show my appreciation for his New
Year’s gift to me.
For background on this issue visit the A.R.T.I.S.T. website [http://www.openair.org/alerts/artist/nyc.html]
Also see:
NY TIMES 6/2/98 Street Vendors Say First Amendment Rights Threatened
By MIKE ALLEN; NEWSDAY 6/1/98 “More Vendors Curbed / Rudy aide: Food rules hit
art, books, papers”, by Dan Janison. STAFF WRITER pg A 23; Newsday 4/20/98 cover
story “Under Giuliani City Has Repeatedly Stifled Dissent”; N.Y. Times 5/7/98
pg B4 “For Giuliani, A Different Big Picture”; NY TIMES 5/24/98, “Giuliani Plans
to Prohibit Food Vending in Wide Area”.; NY TIMES 5/31/98 “Vendors Face a New
Round of Street Bans”. For more information on the Street Vendor Review Panel
[SVRP] contact Deputy Mayor Rudy Washington at the Department of Business Services
(212) 788-0120; SVRP Andrew Schwartz chief counsel, (212) 513-6428 Mayor Giuliani's
press office 212 788-2958 fax 788-2975. fax 406-3587 (Sunny Mindel).
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Robert Lederman is an artist, a regular columnist for both the Grenwich Village
Gazette [See: http://www.gvny.com/ ] and Street News, and is the author of hundreds
of published essays concerning Mayor Rudolph Giuliani. His essays and letters
have appeared in the NY Times, NY Post, Daily News, Newsday, Brooklyn Bridge,
Park Slope Courier, The Daily Challenge, Amsterdam News, Sandbox, Penthouse,
Our Town, NY Press and are available on hundreds of websites around the world.
Lederman has been falsely arrested 40 times to date for his anti-Giuliani activities
and has never been convicted of any of the charges. He is best known for creating
hundreds of paintings of Mayor Giuliani as a Hitler like dictator.
Robert Lederman, President of A.R.T.I.S.T.
(Artists’ Response To Illegal State Tactics)
ARTISTpres@aol.com (718) 743-3722
http://www.openair.org/alerts/artist/nyc.html
Also see: http://www.levymultimedia.com/news.htm
for Lederman’s essays on Malathion and the spraying of
insecticides on NYC [scroll down the menu to the items
highlighted in blue].
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The following note is forwarded from harris@citystreets.org
Impeach Giuliani.org
Subj: feeling sticky
Date: 12/15/1999 7:50:36 PM Pacific Standard Time
Impeach Giuliani.org
We have printed up stickers with a picture of Rudy in a red circle with a line
going through it and the words impeach Giuliani.org. at the bottom of the sticker.
If anyone would like to stick some up in their neighborhood, in front of their
door. On the window to their store, the bathroom of their favorite restaurant...
just send a stamped self addressed envelope to :
Impeach Giuliani
PO BOX 30281
New York, NY 10011
And we will fill the envelope up with stickers and send it back to you. There's
no charge for the stickers. But donations for future printings will be gladly
accepted.
Please pass this along to anyone you think might be interested.
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