This past weekend the East Village commemorated the three decade
anniversary of the Tomkins Square Park Riots with two days of concerts and
speeches in the once-notorious East Village park.
Protests over a 1 a.m. curfew of the park and eviction of
homeless encampments there ended with multiple clashes with police and multiple
instances of police brutality. It was among the first widely documented
instances of police brutality caught on video
and broadcast on the news. Angry protesters shouted dire warnings about
gentrification, yelled “Die Yuppie Scum,” and vandalized a new apartment
building. Police chased people down and clubbed them with night sticks. It was
a low point in New York’s history but things would soon change.
I was an angry suburban punk rock high school kid in the
late 1980s and I made it a point to go to New York and walk to Tompkins Square
Park after the riot. While I made it there, I did not stay very long. The park
was still a homeless encampment and drug-invested village of skels and
squatters, even with the 1 a.m. curfew. I would walk along 8th
Street and St. Mark’s after visiting a great record store called It’sOnly Rock & Roll that did not survive to the late 1990s.
This year’s commemorative concerts included a reunion of Team Spider, a group I have long admired and followed that
embody the best of the East Village punk rock ethos. For about a decade they
had an elderly songwriter ZAK, join them for most of their performances.
ZAK passed away in 2006. So I made it an imperative to get to
the park to see Team Spider.
The fact that I felt safe enough to drive to the East
Village in a minivan with my wife and three small children is testament to the
radical changes that have affected the East Village in the interceding 30
years. Amazingly, I found a parking spot right alongside Avenue B. I parked
right across the street from St. Brigid’s Church. The church has a storied
history, including being used as a center for activists during the 1988 park
protests. There is personal history there too. I was arrested for taping a flyer
to a light post right on the corner outside the church in 2005.
We walked into the park between bands, and someone was on
stage making a long-winded political speech. They had been there during the
riots in 1988 and now the spirit of resistance was needed even more because
Trump is a racist and in league with the Nazis and no borders and die yuppie
scum and …I tuned out most of the rambling speech and instead said hello to
friends that I saw there. Some of my friends that I know through music have not
yet met my children, so it was good to introduce some of my punk rock family to
may actual nuclear family.
Team Spider took the stage and rocked. Their brand of
ska-infused, politically conscious punk rock is as relevant today as it was
when they were performing regularly, and they even updated some of the lyrics
to mention Donald Trump instead of George W. Bush. The concert was well
attended – Choking Victim closed out the show after Team Spider – and evidence
that the spirit of political protest has not been cleansed from our city
streets entirely.
But by any measure of anti-gentrification politics, the
yuppies have won in the East Village. There are only a few squatters left among
the increasingly expensive real estate that have driven out much of the radical
politics that fueled the protests. The 1 a.m. curfew on the park is still in
effect and there’s a Starbucks where there was once a pizza place not long ago.
After we listed to Team Spider play, we brought our girls to
a playground. I took a small detour to meet with old friends at the show, but
soon it was time to go for ice cream. I am happy to report that Ray’s Candy Store is still on Avenue A and I and the family got
to eat ice cream cones served by Ray himself. We found a bench in the park that
was away from some of the homeless congregations that still take up a lot of
space there and quickly ate the ice cream, though the summer heat made us all a
mess. Soon it was time for home.
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