By Robert Lederman President of A.R.T.I.S.T. (Artists' Response To Illegal State Tactics); 11/27/96
provided by OPENAIR-MARKET NET
In the Fall of 1993 the First Precinct began arresting every artist who displayed or sold their paintings, prints, sculptures or photographs on SoHo's streets. Eventually, the crackdown on street artists spread throughout New York City. From the Fall of 1993 until the Fall of 1996 more than 350 artists were arrested, handcuffed and had their art confiscated. Thousands of times during that period artists were threatened with arrest and forced to close their displays. Not one artists' case was ever brought to trial. Not one artist was ever found guilty of a crime. Thousands of works of confiscated fine art were illegally sold at a monthly police department auction or destroyed, regardless of every case being dismissed.
From the beginning, the police claimed they were responding to pressure from a local community group, The SoHo Alliance, and one of its leaders, City Council Member Kathryn Freed. The Alliance claimed street artists were causing sidewalk congestion and harming their property values.
Once arrested, artists were charged with 20-453, not having a vending license issued by the Department of Consumer Affairs. After appearing in court repeatedly over a three or four month period and being pressured to plead guilty or plea bargain, the charge would always be dismissed. In 1979 the City Council had frozen the number of licenses at 853. In some years not one new license was issued despite a 5,000 person waiting list. As the City later admitted in its testimony in the street artist Federal lawsuit, artists were, "...unable to obtain a license".
Not only were artists, "unable to obtain a license"; they didn't actually need one. For many years the Department of Consumer Affairs had issued letters to street artists stating that, "Based on the First Amendment you do not need a vending license to sell your art on N.Y.C. streets." [see letter to Ed Weiland]. Book vendors are similarly exempted from the license requirement based on the First Amendment. In other words, the City Council, the D.A.'s office, the Corporation Counsel (lawyers representing the City), the Police Department and Council Member Freed all knew the artist arrests were unconstitutional and illegal. That is the reason why every artist case was dismissed. Nevertheless, Council Member Freed (a member of the City Council's Consumer Affairs Committee, and, according to the Downtown Express, "...a major supporter of the law that requires artists to get a license to sell their works in public...") continued to demand that artists be arrested.
A.R.T.I.S.T. (Artists' Response To Illegal State Tactics) was founded in October of 1993 as an emergency response to the arrests. I was elected its president. After we held demonstrations outside City Hall and the Manhattan Criminal Court building and began receiving media coverage, Council Member Freed responded by arranging a public hearing before her Consumer Affairs Committee on this issue. Sixty witnesses testified including artists, elected and appointed N.Y.C. officials and SoHo community members [transcripts are available]. Of the sixty witnesses, only two spoke negatively about sidewalk art displays. These two witnesses were landlord/members of the SoHo Alliance and close associates of Council Member Freed. At the hearing Freed proposed setting up a strictly limited system of permits for artists involving a lottery and a certification process which would arbitrarily decide who was or wasn't an "artist". Once certified, those few artists fortunate enough to win the lottery would then be required to pay a fee in order to set up in one of a handful of "special areas", i.e. ghetto-like empty lots in secluded areas of the City.
The position of A.R.T.I.S.T. since its founding has been that public art displays are a form of visual expression protected by the First Amendment; that artists need no license, permit or certification of any kind; that we have a right to display and sell our First Amendment protected works on public property as book vendors and newspaper sellers do; and that sidewalk art displays enhance the quality of life rather than threaten it. From the very beginning of this issue we agreed that the City had a right to make reasonable time, place and manner restrictions on the size and placement of sidewalk art displays in order to protect public safety and the rights of property owners. With the exception of Council Member Freed, even the City officials that testified completely agreed with our view. Ironically, the City was advertising the presence of street artists in its "I Love N.Y." tourism campaign at the same time it was arresting us.
At the end of the hearing Council Member Freed said she'd let us know what they decided to do. We left the hearing with a sense of hope, believing that government was responding to our request for help. Immediately thereafter, the pace and aggressiveness of the arrests picked up rather than decreasing. The police continued to point to Council Member Freed and the SoHo Alliance as the source of pressure to make the arrests. I've personally been told this by three different N.Y.P.D. Captains, a number of N.Y.P.D. lieutenants, numerous street level police officers assigned to make artist arrests, City Council Members, community members in SoHo and even staff members in Freed's own office. Members of Community Board #2 have said that Freed is obsessed with getting rid of the street artists and that she refuses to let go of the issue even though it's done her a great deal of political harm. Freed has given more than 100 interviews on the issue in which she vilifies street artists as, "parasites" and claims we are somehow destroying SoHo's unique character.
As the arrest policy escalated throughout 1994 A.R.T.I.S.T. members began writing, posting and distributing flyers and signs exposing Council Member Freed's involvement in the issue. Whenever we'd hold a demonstration against Freed, begin a new campaign of distributing leaflets or get media coverage depicting Freed's involvement, the arrests would 'mysteriously' cease.
Earlier, Freed had begun making absurd public statements about myself, the group A.R.T.I.S.T. and street artists in general. These statements are documented in numerous newspaper articles and T.V. interviews and can be attested to by hundreds of witnesses in the community. Among the more imaginative statements were that I was, "stalking female members of the SoHo Alliance"; "sending them pornography through the mail" and "painting swastikas on buildings in SoHo". Freed also tells reporters that, "Robert Lederman was brought downtown to the D.A.'s office and questioned about stalking and warned that if he didn't stop he'd be prosecuted". The D.A.'s office denies any such interview or warning ever took place and there are no police reports about me stalking anyone. When questioned more closely by reporters, Freed has admitted that the "stalking" involved my organizing protest demonstrations (complete with police escorts, reporters and T.V. news crews) wherever artists were arrested and distributing politically embarrassing leaflets about her and the SoHo Alliance. Because many of the arrests took place near buildings owned by Alliance members, the demonstrations were often held outside those same locations.
In 1994, after public opinion about the artist arrests turned
strongly against Freed, she and the Alliance began claiming that
they were actually trying to "help the artists" by setting
up "alternative spaces" for them in lots to sell their
art, and that the police had been pressured by them to arrest
general vendors not artists. In other words, it was all a big
mistake; incompetent police had somehow gotten her orders wrong!
The facts are quite different. On numerous occasions the police arrested artists in SoHo while ignoring unlicensed general vendors set up right next to them. On a number of occasions the police said they'd been sent by Freed specifically to arrest me while I was giving out leaflets. A woman member of our group claims that Freed personally tore down her art display and screamed curses at her. I've been arrested 13 times for selling my art, and three times for handing out anti-Freed leaflets, publicly speaking about this issue or holding up anti-Freed protest signs when artists were being arrested. Uniformed police officers from the First Precinct have been observed carefully tearing down anti-Freed literature from walls (while leaving other literature intact) and have entered businesses in SoHo while on duty to give the owners false information about myself and A.R.T.I.S.T. Police officers have also visited my home in Brooklyn at 7 A.M. to give me summonses for allegedly posting anti-Freed leaflets in SoHo. A T.V. news reporter told me he wanted to keep covering the street artist issue but had been, "...warned by the police that he'd lose all access to the N.Y.P.D. if he continued to cover the story".
Blaming the police for problems she's helped create is a recurrent pattern for Freed. As a result, Freed is quite unpopular with police officers but is, at the same time, feared and often obeyed by them because of her political connections. Community members have told me they are afraid to publicly speak out against Freed because they've received telephone threats and verbal abuse from her associates after expressing a contrary opinion on one or more local political issues.
In the Fall of 1994 I and many other street artists filed federal and State lawsuits against the City claiming First and Fourteenth Amendment violations. Freed and the Alliance then issued a written statement claiming that, "Lederman, in an attempt to rise from obscurity and garner publicity and donations for himself, initiated a lawsuit against the City..."; that I was, "encouraging innocent artists to sell on the street, knowing they will be arrested..."; and that the lawsuit was somehow, "preventing her from resolving the issue". Freed, Sean Sweeney (Director of the SoHo Alliance) and the head of the Fifth Avenue B.I.D. Robert Loutitt, appeared in Federal Court at our hearings, unsuccessfully attempted to testify and later filed an amicus brief opposing our position. Their brief [#95-9089], filed 2/28/96, was co-signed by the SoHo Alliance, the Fifth Avenue Association, the Alliance for Downtown New York, The 34th Street Partnership, The Madison Avenue B.I.D. and the Grand Central Partnership, all influential real estate groups with ties to Freed. Freed sits on the steering committee of the Alliance and is its most prominent member. Their brief claimed that visual art is unworthy of First Amendment protection.
The 30 page Freed/SoHo Alliance brief may be one of the most insulting documents ever written about artists, art dealers or art. It claims, "The sale of artwork does not involve communication of thoughts or ideas" and warns of, "the dangers...of allowing visual art full First Amendment protection". It goes on to state, "An artists' freedom of expression is not compromised by regulating his ability to merchandise his artwork", and, "..the sale of paintings and other artwork does not reach this high level of expression guaranteeing First Amendment protection...". It was filed without the knowledge of the members of the SoHo Alliance, many of whom are art dealers or work in art related businesses and quit the Alliance after finding out about the brief.
While claiming to be a big supporter of the arts, Freed has engaged in one of the most aggressive attacks on artists' rights ever attempted in this country. She's managed to make a censorship advocate like Senator Jesse Helms seem moderate by comparison. According to a two page N.Y. Times expose on Freed ["The War of Nerves Downtown" 7/14/96, City section pg. 1] "The Councilwoman...is seeking to overturn Constitutional protections for visual art".
Freed tells her few remaining supporters in the arts community that The Times printed a retraction of their claims about her being against artists' rights. The Times retracted only three words in its expose on Freed. Those three words claimed that Freed, "joined a suit", mistakenly implying that she was a plaintiff in the street artist Federal lawsuit. Since it was myself and other street artists who were the plaintiffs, it was an error to say that Freed had joined our suit. What the Times meant to say was that Freed had helped file a 30 page amicus brief against our suit, which, if the court had taken it seriously, would have eliminated the speech rights of every artist, art dealer and museum in the U.S. For the elected official representing SoHo, Tribeca and parts of the East and West Village to be attempting to eliminate First Amendment protection for all visual art is an inexcusable political position. It's not surprising that Freed wants to deny her part in it.
Since 10/11/96 when the Federal Appeals Court issued a sweeping ruling in favor of the street artists, Freed has attempted to distance herself from her brief by claiming that, "...it doesn't have my signature on it". The brief is signed by Mr. Shelly Friedman (212) 546-0124 an attorney who routinely works for Freed, Sean Sweeney, the Fifth Avenue Association and other related real estate interests. Freed's community aide, Mr. Steven Lee, admitted that Freed helped file the brief but qualified his statement by saying she did it as a SoHo Alliance member, not as a City Council Member. He also claimed her phone calls to the police requesting them to arrest artists are made as a SoHo Alliance member not as a government official. The police claim they have numerous letters from Freed to the Mayor, the Police Commissioner and the First Precinct asking them to get rid of the areas' street artists. When the Captain of the First Precinct, William Callahan, was recently subpoenaed by Judge William Mogalescu in three of my arrest cases and ordered to produce the letters, he sent the court A.R.T.I.S.T. leaflets and press clippings instead.
By writing and speaking out against Freed I became known as her opponent. Local community people dissillusioned with Freed began giving me information about her, the SoHo Alliance, Sean Sweeney and the Community Boards she appoints her associates to. A consistent pattern of corruption became evident involving a number of related issues, all of which came back to real estate interests and developers in Manhattan.
Immediately after the Federal Appeals Court ruled that street artists need no license, Freed again began making public statements about her intent to, "...reintroduce legislation that would set up a committee to certify artists" [Villager 10/16/96; Downtown Express 10/22/96; N.Y. Times 10/13/96]. Her proposed legislation blatantly violates both the spirit and letter of the Federal Court ruling in virtually every detail.
Freed takes public positions that are often the exact opposite of what she is actually doing. Aside from the obvious lie that she is, "...trying to help street artists", her public positions on bars, large retail stores, hotels and film companies working on lower Manhattan streets are very much at odds with the facts. More and more of her constituents are becoming aware of the conflict between Freed's public and private positions and are turning against her. Her leadership in defeating the proposed Bar Moratorium and her persecution of the City's street artists caused many of the SoHo Alliance's most active members to quit and join a new group, the SoHo Community Council, which opposes Freed on a number of these issues.
During the entire 1993-1996 period I made numerous written and telephone requests to meet with Council Member Freed or her associates and work out a reasonable solution to the street artist issue. Freed refused to meet or discuss the issue, but gave close to 100 interviews about street artists and even did a number of T.V. and radio interviews with me. While waiting to do channel five's "Good Morning N.Y." last year, Freed assured me that if we won the Federal Court case she'd appeal it to the U.S. Supreme Court.
For me this issue is not a personal one, though it is often depicted that way in the media. I have no interest in getting revenge against Council Member Freed for her past actions or in "getting even" with anyone else involved in having artists arrested. As a street artist myself, and as the elected representative of 300 other street artists it is my job to advocate for our rights and to do whatever I can to advance our cause. I see my leafleting, protesting and public speaking about Council Member Freed as legitimate, legal and necessary political activities. Criticizing and exposing a government officials' wrongdoing is the clearest example of First Amendment protected speech imaginable. Council Member Freed is an elected public official who has illegally used her position in the government to harass artists and deny them their constitutional rights. Council Member Freed has been the target of much of my literature because she has been the one elected N.Y.C. official who took an aggressive public stand against street artists, advocated having them arrested, defamed them, proposed putting them into ghetto- like empty lots and continues, even after the Federal Court ruling, to seek to violate our rights.
Council Member Freed's animosity towards me is not hard to understand. I'm the person responsible for exposing her part in this to the media, the arts community and her own constituents. Rather than respond directly to my allegations, which might further expose her wrongdoings, or admit being wrong and changing her position, Council Member Freed has attempted to depict me at various times as a nut; a megalomaniac; a mad stalker; a publicity seeker; a paid operative of her political enemies and a pornographer. Unfortunately for her credibility, she lacks evidence for any of these allegations. What's more to the point, were any or even all of these bizarre allegations true, it still would not explain or justify her persecution of New York's street artist community, her attacks on artists' First Amendment rights or any of the other corruption and conflict of interest issues I've raised about her.
I do not believe that Council Member Freed is against art or hates artists, nor do I believe she is irrationally motivated in her attacks on myself or my group. Everything she does and says is part of a larger pattern of protecting the interests of her campaign contributors and friends in New York's real estate, business and development communities. If these real estate interests had decided that street artists raised their property values, Council Member Freed would have been our staunchest ally and protector rather than our harshest critic and oppressor.
Unfortunately, what these real estate and corporate interests believe is that, practically speaking, First Amendment freedom is fine for them, but not for the average American; that public streets and sidewalks are a venue for their elite stores, hotels and tourist attractions, but not for an artist or leafleteer; that owning one or more buildings gives one the ultimate authority to decide which constitutionally protected activities are allowed in the adjoining public space; and that allowing artists, "full First Amendment protection", is "dangerous", to quote their brief. Although prepared to eliminate artists' free speech rights, these same big business people are extremely vigilant about protecting their own freedoms of speech and free enterprise. These include the right to advertise and sell whatever they like however toxic or damaging to society, including cigarettes, alcohol and fashionable clothing and toys manufactured in the third world by child laborers working under slavelike conditions. According to their thinking, street artists must be eliminated to avoid dangerous sidewalk congestion, yet their own corporate towers, hotels, mega-stores and tourist enterprises like Trump Tower, Disney, Niketown and Planet Hollywood create immeasurably greater sidewalk and traffic congestion.
Unfortunately, there's nothing unique about discovering corruption in politics, nor about elected officials ignoring the U.S. Constitution in order to advance the interests of their wealthy contributors. We have a whole Congress filled with such elected officials. Freed's mistake was to doubt that a handful of street artists might dare to stand up to her, the police, the D.A.'s office, the City Council, New Yorks' immensely wealthy real estate community and the court system.
Now we are waiting to see whether the City, Council Member Freed and their big business clients will appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, or, see reason, respect the constitution and recognize our rights. Until this issue is securely and finally resolved I will continue to protest, write about and speak publicly against Council Member Freed or any one else seeking to abridge the speech rights of artists. I urge you to join with us and help protect the freedom of speech it took thousands of years of human history to enshrine as law in our First Amendment.
For more information contact Robert Lederman 718 369-2111 e-mail ARTISTpres@aol.com or visit our web site at http://www.openair.org/alerts/artist/nyc.html
Council Member Freed 212 788-7722
SoHo Community Council 212 334-3209
Soho Alliance/Sean Sweeney 212 353-8466
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