A scene of Lower East Side before gentrification. December 1987.

You better hold on, something’s happening here.
You better hold on, meet you in Tompkins Square.
— Lou Reed, Hold On (1989)

Tompkins Square Park is about the resistance and struggle of people in the Lower East Side, literally to exist as the community faced drastic gentrification in the late 1980s and mid-1990s. This story focuses on Tompkins Square Park as the symbol and stronghold of the anti-gentrification movement — the scene of one of the most important, political and avant-garde movements in New York.

 

Homeless people line up for food on Christmas Day at the soup kitchen at La Plaza Cultural near Tompkins Square Park. December 1987.

 

Summer, 1988. Tompkins Square Park, which long served as a makeshift home for the homeless and a center for social unrest, erupted in violence when the New York City police and hundreds of protesters clashed over ideological differences. Residents of the Lower East Side, historically home to diverse immigrant communities but facing gentrification, united to protest the 1a.m. curfew the city was attempting to enforce on the park, in effect banishing the homeless and closing off many areas of the park that were once public. Over the humid night on August 6th, demonstrators carrying signs that read “Gentrification is Class War” and chanting “It’s our fucking park, you don’t live here!” clashed with police armed with riot gear. The violence lasted until the next morning. It was Tompkins Park’s first iconic police riot and became the trigger to further radicalize the community’s political movement.

 

During Wig Stock, New York’s annual drag queen festival in Tompkins Square Park, a man who may have HIV/ AIDS sits in the street nearby. September 1993.

 

At Tompkins Square Park, homeless people and their supporters camp out under American flags to highlight homelessness. August 1989.

Surrounding Tompkins Square Park, Lower East Side residents show solidarity in hands in hands to protest the forceful Tompkins Square Park closure. June 1991.

 

New York's riot geared police forces stand ready to confront protesters on Avenue B. June 03 1991.

On Memorial Day, protesters of anti-gentrification movement prepare to confront police on Avenue A. May 27 1991.

 

During eviction from Tompkins Square Park, a homeless man complains and is roughly arrested. December 14 1989.

 

During the forceful eviction of the homeless from Tompkins Square Park, some of homeless residents burn their tents as protest. December 14 1989.

 

The August 6th “police riot” –- so called because the consensus was that the police overreacted to the protestors –- and subsequent Tompkins Square riots were the manifestation of a larger concern of the over-gentrification of the Lower East Side. The Lower East Side has a long history of liberal, and at times radical, movements that attracted artists, intellectuals, anarchists, activists, squatters, immigrants, and even political exiles. Many in the community, unlike other more passive communities facing gentrification, stood up and worked together with the homeless to protect housing rights and human rights, and their own lifestyle. By 1991, the estimated 300 homeless people living in Tompkins Square Park were gone and the park was forcefully closed for renovations. After the reopening in summer 1992, the Lower East Side quickly started to transform into one of the most gentrified high-rent communities in New York. Although the anti-gentrification-movement still remained for several years, it lost its strong grassroots momentum, especially after Rudy Giuliani took the mayoral office.

 

The inauguration of New York mayor Rudolf Giuliani, another sharp turning point toward gentrification in the town. January 01 1994.

 

Twenty years after the August 6th riot, the park now boasts one of the best dog runs in New York City; the Lower East Side lost much of its diversity, and instead it has become one of the city’s most expensive, theme-park-lilke entertainment districts, as one can easily find in other big towns in US. However, for people hooked on the Lower East Side during the radical protest era, or even for some of the newcomers and outsiders, the Tompkins Square resistance to defend housing rights and human rights as well as diverse lifestyles remains as a significant historical legacy.

 

A march down Avenue B in memory of Terry Taylor, another homeless Tompkins Square Park activist who died of AIDS. January 4, 1994.

 

Following the eviction of the homeless from shantytown Dinkinsville, the residents' possessions are flattened and destroyed. Oct 15 1991.

 

You would see the complete story images and the texts in my book — “Tompkins Square Park” – published by PowerHouse Books.

www.powerhousebooks.com/book/417

or

www.qsakamaki.com

( The images are slightly different between the book and the website. Also, you can surely see more world wide stories.)