3/4/98
Re: N.Y. Times editorial, "The Fight Over Street Art"
by Robert Lederman, President of A.R.T.I.S.T. (Artists' Response To Illegal State Tactics).
provided through OPENAIR-MARKET NET
The Giuliani Administration, in its typically petty and tyrannical manner, does seem to be trying to get revenge for the street artists' success in Federal court. How else to explain the fact that the City and the Department of Parks allowed an unlimited number of artists to sell in front of the Metropolitan Museum, without a permit or license, since the museum first opened more than 100 years ago. Now that we street artists have officially established a First Amendment right to create, display and sell fine art in public spaces without a permit or license, the City suddenly wants to impose a permit system, distribute a limited number of these permits through a monthly lottery and then take away the permit for two minor infractions of the "rules".
We have never disputed the City or the Parks Department having a legitimate right to enforce reasonable guidelines as to where artists can set up and how large their displays can be. Both the Parks Department and the City already have extensive rules governing these aspects of sidewalk art displays.
In front of the Met, it is an army of police personnel, their numerous vehicles parked all over the sidewalk, police barriers set up to intimidate artists and the daily arrests and confiscations of art that are causing congestion and creating the only threat to public safety. The bizarre notion expressed by the Parks Department that replacing art displays with food concessions would "reduce congestion" is only surpassed by their claim that taking away artists' First Amendment rights and forcing them to compete in a lottery for one of 24 spots is a way of "helping artists".
Before the Parks Department attempted to abridge our rights in this location, the artists themselves and the local police officer on the beat, Richard Sanchez of the Central Park Precinct, maintained an orderly first come, first served system of distributing the spaces. The massive waste of police resources that the Giuliani Administration has committed to suppressing the rights of street artists over the past four years should be immediately ended and these officers allowed to return to doing the authentic police work they were hired to do. Until the City backs off, our daily protest at the Met will continue.
For more info, contact: A.R.T.I.S.T. Ph: (718) 369-2111 or (212) 561-0877; Email <ARTISTpres@aol.com>; Web site http://www.openair.org/alerts/artist/nyc.html. Read the 2nd circuit ruling at our web site.
Also see Also see: NY Times 3/2/98 B1; NY Times Editorial 3/4/98; Newsday 3/2/98 A7; Village Voice 2/24/98 pg 57; Newsday 2/26/98 A8; NY Times 6/3/97 B2