NY Post Still Attacking Artists and Vendors by Robert Lederman
For the past eight years the NY Post has viciously attacked street artists
on behalf of Giuliani and the BIDs (Business Improvement Districts). Eight
editorials and op-eds not to mention numerous negatively-slanted news
articles were published between 1994 and 2001 denouncing the ARTIST group I
head, our lawsuits against Giuliani (all of which we've won), our lawful
protest activities and the judges who ruled in our favor.
Since the 9/11 attack the Post has published a barrage of negative articles
about vending often containing ethnic slurs ("money grubbing", "leeches"
etc. ) which feature carefully selected photos of Arab and Islamic immigrant
vendors. Many of these vendors are shown selling art. Beyond the ugly ethnic
and racial angle the Post is known for, these articles are intended to bash
street artists and art vendors.
Take today's Post article below (1/13/2002) as a perfect example of what I
mean. You can see it at this address
http://www.nypost.com/news/regionalnews/38766.htm
While the text about the sale of NYPD and FDNY logo merchandise does not
mention one word on art, art vendors or artists the accompanying photo on
the Post website is solely of an art vendor. From the photo it is clear that
this man is selling art and has no merchandise containing an NYPD or FDNY
logo. Nevertheless, it's unlikely that many Post readers will consciously
realize the purpose of including this photo. All they will remember is the
negative association that the Post intends to make between street artists
and exploiting the 9/11 tragedy.
While the ARTIST group does not support or condone anyone exploiting the WTC
tragedy, we feel that the Post's almost daily attacks on these vendors is
hypocritical in the extreme. It's real purpose is stirring up a sense of
public hatred towards artists and vendors. No differently from the vendors
described in these articles, the Post and it's affiliated TV network, FOX,
have shamelessly exploited the 9/11 attack for profit each and every day.
They feature a steady stream of exploitative pieces about the NYPD and FDNY
victims and families that are meant to sell newspapers and advertising time.
Meanwhile, they have yet to publish a single story on the criticism Mayor
Giuliani has received from the NYPD and FDNY unions about his part in
building a viewing platform for tourists, directly obstructing the WTC
investigation, destroying the evidence from it or his failure to provide
rescue workers with proper safety equipment.
There are no Post exclusives exposing Giuliani's false claims that there are
no health problems associated with the dust and gasses still escaping from
the site. While publishing hundreds of articles about FDNY and NYPD funerals
featuring Mayor Giuliani, there's no mention of the deep resentment these
men and women feel towards him for keeping their salaries artificially low
while claiming so much credit for the heroic work they do. During his eight
years in office Giuliani gave tens of millions of dollars in tax write-offs
to the NY Post but couldnt find the money to provide the FDNY with up to
date safety equipment.
Like the vendors described in this series of attack articles the Post does
not contributes a percentage of the sale of each newspaper to either the
police or fire department nor did they get anyone's permission to use their
logos to help sell newspapers. Immigrant vendors from the middle east sell
the NY Post on the exact same downtown Manhattan sidewalks where immigrant
artists and vendors struggle to earn a living.
The viewing platform Mayor Giuliani ordered built for tourists at ground
zero after three months of restricting the area to real New Yorkers and the
media is itself a gross commercialization of a tragedy. Tickets for the
viewing platform are offered at only one location - the South Street Seaport
- one of the Citys main tourist attractions. The Downtown Alliance BID even
promotes a ground zero disaster tour complete with a happy hour , shopping
coupons and discounts to Broadway shows.
Tourists who think they are supporting the FDNY or NYPD by buying a souvenir
with a logo - regardless of it being official or not are kidding
themselves. The FDNY and NYPD have funds for the victims that will be glad
to take a direct donation with all the funds going directly to the surviving
families. Wearing a logo is about showing your friends back home that you
went someplace. And if someone really wants to support the FDNY how about
supporting their getting proper safety equipment before the next disaster
happens?
The ultimate irony of the Post's eight years of vicious attacks on street
artists is that sidewalk and newspaper vending box sales of the Post are
protected by the exact same laws that govern street artists. Based on the
First Amendment freedom shared by artists since we've won our lawsuits, the
Post pays nothing to the City for their unlicensed sidewalk vendors or for
the right to install thousands of steel newspaper vending boxes on the same
public property where artists sell their works - including the areas at
ground zero and in front of the Metropolitan Museum of Art that the Post
features in its anti-street artist campaign.
The freedom that allows a newspaper like the Post to publish their
politically-slanted, corporate-biased and often racially-bigoted version of
the "news" is this nation's greatest resource. How the Post or vendors
choose to use this freedom is a matter of personal responsibility. When will
the Post admit that this freedom is shared by everyone not just by those
connected to their corporate club?
Robert Lederman
President of A.R.T.I.S.T.
(Artists' Response To Illegal State Tactics)
robert.lederman@worldnet.att.net
http://baltech.org/lederman/
http://www.openair.org/alerts/artist/nyc.html
NY Post
POLICE SWEEPING THE SIDEWALKS FOR LOGO LEECHES AT GROUND ZERO
By BRUCE FURMAN and BRIDGET HARRISON
-photo removed so that this can be sent without an attachment. To see the
photo go to
http://www.nypost.com/news/regionalnews/38766.htm
January 13, 2002 -- The cops are putting the lid on street vendors hawking
unofficial NYPD and FDNY merchandise at ground zero.
Cops have beefed up their presence to enforce stricter peddler regulations
and are gearing up to start seizing counterfeit merchandise, officials said
yesterday.
The get-tough approach seems to be working.
Vendors, out in force downtown yesterday, were grumbling that the stricter
enforcement - coupled with tourists who are starting to turn away from the
counterfeit merchandise - is hurting sales.
"I'm hardly selling nothing," said street vendor Andrew Hawkins, set up
yesterday outside Trinity Church on Broadway. "The cops have been moving us
on, three or four times a day, and the people aren't buying the products now."
He said on a normal Saturday he'd take in $600, but yesterday he made only
$200.
Cops began a crackdown on vendors shamelessly hawking their wares after The
Post highlighted the disrespectful trade near the Twin Towers disaster site.
Many vendors are capitalizing on the tragedy and selling counterfeit
merchandise that includes the logos of the Police and Fire departments.
Proceeds from licensed merchandise go to charity, while sales of the phony
items only line the pockets of vendors and suppliers.
While cops have cracked down by checking vendors licenses and issuing
tickets to violators, they haven't yet started confiscating phony-logo
merchandise.
They're waiting for a legal finding from the NYPD's law office to set ground
rules for grabbing fakes.
Hawkins, a Vietnam vet, has a street-vendor license but sells unofficial
NYPD and FDNY baseball hats, woolly hats and headbands.
He said the cops should be focusing on the unlicensed street vendors, not
people like him who were just trying to make a living.
Dozens of other vendors were set up along Broadway, Fulton Street and Maiden
Lane yesterday, but few tourists lining up for a peek at ground zero were
buying the goods.
One visitor said he bought a fake FDNY baseball cap but threw it away and
purchased a genuine one from an official Fire Department source.
"At first it didn't cross my mind," said Bill Lukashok, 44, a Manhattan
real-estate investor. "My primary aim was to show my support for what
happened down here. But then I decided the right thing to do would be to buy
a proper one.
"The companies who make the products the street vendors sell should be made
to make a donation to the Sept. 11 charities. Otherwise they are getting a
windfall based on monumental tragedy, which is not right."
Dave Marchione, 33, a Florida businessman said he made a special trip to the
Ladder 15 fire-house at the South Street Seaport to buy an official FDNY hat.
Although his cost was $15 - $10 more than for the fake ones - he said the
purchase was worth it.
"I think the trade is terrible," he said. "These people defended our
freedom. Why would you buy a hat from a vendor when you can give money to
the people who deserve it?"
Additional reporting by Philip Messing
For the second time in two years, The New York Post has received large tax
breaks and other subsidies from city and state officials after threatening
to move some of its operations out of New York City. Officials have granted
the newspaper $24.4 million in incentives to build a new printing plant on
17 acres at a rail yard in the South Bronx. NYTIMES 7/21/98
EDITORIAL NY POST 5/17/98
THE ARTIST HUSTLE
By one count there are more self-described "artists" living in New York
City than the entire population of Renaissance Florence. This is hardly
surprising given post-war New York's acknowledged status as the capital of
the Art World.
But it is a statistic that should shed some light on the outrageous claims
of persecution by "artists" who bitterly resent having to get a permit to
sell their wares on the plaza outside the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
The city imposes strict limits on anyone who sells anything on the streets
of New York. The only exceptions to these limits - because of the free
speech guaranteed by the First Amendment - apply to vendors of printed
matter like books and magazines. The city can still regulate such vendors,
but only in a reasonable, content-neutral manner.
The so-called artists who have been demonstrating outside the Metropolitan
Museum of Art believe that their daubings and scratchings should be treated
in the same way books are. Fair enough. But they also want an unlimited
right to sell their product outside the Metropolitan Museum of Art, on a
plaza that belongs to the Parks Department.
Now, parks are obviously different from other public spaces. The Parks
Department and the Police Department have finally managed to make Central
Park once again a safe, clean, green oasis for the public. And the
extraordinary irony is that the artist-activists are screaming because the
city won't let them commercialize a corner of it!
They think that because they are selling stuff that they call "art" (and
today, art can mean literally anything) the normal rules don't apply. But
the last thing a plaza that abuts Fifth Avenue and Central Park needs is to
be turned into a honky-tonk flea market.
Elsewhere in the city, in Battery Park, Washington Square and at the West
4th Street Courts, the Parks Department has run a monthly lottery to parcel
out spots where artists can set up stalls.
The Artist Vendor Permit system, which, incidently, was suggested by the
ACLU, has been going since 1995. Every month 85 percent of applicants get a
license, and both congestion and scuffles between rival artist-vendors are
avoided.
But when the Parks Department extended this reasonable system to the
Metropolitan plaza earlier this year, a bunch of artist-activists who call
themselves "Artists' Response to Illegal State Tactics" (yes, the acronym is
ARTIST) went beserk.
They held noisy demonstrations, displayed drawings of the mayor as Adolf
Hitler, and made other ludicrous and offensive comparisons - including
likening themselves to the democracy protesters in Tiananmen Square. Then
they defied the permit system and were accordingly arrested.
In April, ARTIST failed to get a temporary Federal injuction against the
permit system. Now these whining prima donnas are suing the City, the mayor,
the police commisioner, the parks commissioner, the court administration,
various individual officers and the Parks Department for harassment,
wrongful arrest, etc.
They will fail, and they deserve to. Too many talentless troublemakers
believe that being an "artist" entitles them to some kind of waiver from the
rules that bind ordinary folk - in the way that medieval priests enjoyed
"benefit of clergy." But in New York, the home of the world's most
spectacular artistic success stories, artists don't need unfair breaks at
the public's expense.
NY POST EDITORIAL 6/16/98
DEMONIZING RUDY GIULIANI
...We'll say it simply: Just because people don't like Rudy Giuliani
doesn't give them license to compare him to Adolf Hitler.
The Hitler analogy is something that seems to amuse many people in this
city. Cutesy stories have been written and published in the past week about
an art installation on Madison Avenue called No York in which the mayor is
depicted with a Hitler moustache.
This image was first bandied about by an obnoxious twerp who claims to
represent a group called A.R.T.I.S.T. - but which really ought to be called
M.O.R.O.N. - who is outraged that the mayor attempted to enforce plainly
written statutes regarding sidewalk clutter in front of the Metropolitan
Museum. For this, the twerp (whose name we shall never again use because he
deserves no more public mention) imagines that Rudy Giuliani deserves
comparison with the personification of evil in this century...
N.Y. Post 8/20/98 EDITORIAL
FREE SPEECH - OR FREE EXHIBITION SPACE?
Thanks to Mayor Giuliani's quality-of-life program, New Yorkers no longer
have to step over quite so many vagrants in order to enjoy the greenery of
New York's parks or the aesthetic stimulation of the Metropolitan Museum of
Art. Unfortunately, thanks to Manhattan Criminal Court Judge Lucy Billings,
they might now find themselves navigating their way around hordes of
self-described "artists" who think it's appropriate to liken politicians
they oppose to Hitler.
Since March 1, the mayor has sought to bring some order to places such as
the plaza in front of the Metropolitan and the entrances to Central Park by
restricting the number of artists who can congregate in these areas to
create and show their works.
The city requires that they obtain a $25 monthly permit, distributed by
lottery, similar to a system in place at other heavily trafficked locales in
Manhattan. The system seeks to ensure that pedestrian congestion and
scuffles between artist-peddlers for space are avoided. Around 85 percent of
applicants get a license. Violation of the new regulation is a misdemeanor
punishable by up to 90 days in jail and a maximum $1,000 fine.
An attempt by several artists to win a federal injunction against the
regulation on First Amendment grounds failed earlier this year.Since then,
police have been handing out summonses. Several defendants have moved to
have the charges dismissed on free-speech grounds, an argument that found a
friendly ear in Judge Billings.
The judge had better grounds for her decision than many recent judicial
outcomes attacked in these pages. In 1982, the City Council wrote into its
licensing statutes an exemption for vendors of printed matter. Federal court
precedents have interpreted this definition to include artists, and that was
the rationale Billings used to dismiss the charges.
Artists need an unfettered right to produce and sell their art - but, in our
view, they do not have an unfettered right to do it wherever they please. It
is a peculiar extension of the First Amendment to assert that open-air
exhibition space is the same thing as "free speech."
DA Robert Morgenthau's office is considering an appeal - and until a higher
court upholds Judge Billings' decision, it will not be binding on any other
judge in the city. That means police can still enforce the regulation.
New York has again become a safe, clean and orderly place - which is very
difficult to achieve in a very small and crowded space. It will be a
constant struggle to prevent the city from falling back again into the
chaotic libertarianism of the past.
[Note: The City lost every appeal of this case. Artists no longer need any
license or permit to create, display or sell their work on any street in NYC]
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