99% Invisible - 99% Invisible-19- Liberation Squares plus NY Dick

Episode Date: March 11, 2011

In a recent piece from Urban Omnibus, Vishaan Chakrabarti (Professor at the Graduate School for Architecture, Planning and Preservation at Columbia University), wrote about how urban open spaces contribute to political change, “Public spaces like Tompkins Square, Tiananmen Square and … Continue reading →

We get support from UC Davis, a globally ranked university, working to solve the world's most pressing problems in food, energy, health, education, and the environment. UC Davis researchers collaborate and innovate in California and around the globe to find transformational solutions. It's all part of the university's mission to promote quality of life for all living things. Find out more at 21stCentury.ucdavis.edu. This is 99% Invisible. I'm Roman Mars. I'm not one of those people who romanticizes the edgier, grittier New York, but this park has been overrun with dogs and babies. And this is my friend Benjamin Walker reporting from New York City's Tomkin Square Park.

The first Tomkin Square riot took place in 1857. A bunch of unemployed immigrants tried to set the park on fire. And then in 1863, the parks saw more trouble when the ultra violent draft riots and gulfed the city. But it was the riot of 1874 that made Tomkin Square Park famous. Over 7,000 workers battled 1,600 police officers,

some on horseback swinging clubs. Early labor organizers, Samuel Gompers, described the riot as an orgy of brutality. In 1936, Robert Moses redesigned the park. He cut it into sections, and supposedly, he believed his design was riot proof. Well I guess what we know about that is it didn't work. Fish on Chakrabardi is a professor of architecture and design at Columbia University.

In the late 80s he had a girlfriend who lived near Tomkin Square Park. So he experienced the riots of 1988 first hand. It was pretty extraordinary actually. You didn't wander wander around here too much at nighttime. Once again, activists battled it out with cops on horseback. But the difference with this riot is you can watch it on YouTube. It's all right, I'll get you down. I'll get you down.

I'll get you down. In 1992, the park was redesigned again, and there hasn't been another riot. Yet, yet. There does seem to be a little bit of a deliberate intent to make it more of a place of circulation versus a place of repose. You know, one can imagine crowd control happening in a different way, now that there's

all these circulation pathways out, but no big belongs in which people can congregate. The height of the fence seems to keep growing. Chakrabardi recently wrote an essay on the architecture of public protest for the website Urban Omnibus. He examined some of the protests unfolding in the Middle East, but he's interested in the physical sites where thousands and thousands of people are coming together. The traffic circles of Bahrain and the large and open space that is Cairo, Takarir Square.

I think one of the most extraordinary sites when we looked at the protests from Terrier Square were that it was young and old, that there were children, and there were people who were clearly better off and clearly worse off. And I don't think that actions like that are possible in cities without broad swaths of public space. Chakrabadi recently toured the Middle East, and he learned that some authoritarian regimes are still keeping the Robert Moses Tomkin Square dream alive, designing for control. If you go to Riyadh, the capital of Saudi Arabia, here is the city of 4 million people, it's growing, and yet there are virtually no public spaces other than shopping malls. Actually, that's not exactly true.

There is a giant public square in Riyadh, Dira Square, but the only time the public is really allowed to congregate is when there are beheadings. That's why the expats call it Chop Chop Square. There's a sword drain, the diameter of a pizza in order to evacuate the blood. Chakrabardi says the Saudi royalty doesn't need to build fences at chop chop square or at the shopping malls because fear works just as well. The control doesn't need that much physical intervention to be understood by the populace. There's a clear understanding that if you break the

rules there are dire consequences. Now here in New York City's Tomkin Square to be understood by the populace. There is a clear understanding that if you break the rules, there are dire consequences. Now here in New York City's Tomkin Square Park, there is no pizza-sized blood drain, but there are fences that keep people from coming together, the way they did in 1988. And, you know, look, it was a very tense time in New York's urban history,

and a lot of the more peaceful protesters were protesting about affordable housing. And I think that was a very legitimate concern. And actually, I think it's really impacted policy. You know, today, the city of New York builds more affordable housing a year than the entire state of California. Vishan Chakra Party is not saying

that open space necessarily leads to social change. But what he wants us to see when we watch those giant crowds in the Middle East The shocker party is not saying that open space necessarily leads to social change. But what he wants us to see when we watch those giant crowds in the Middle East on TV is this. One could argue that nations actually may not be able to change without the kind of activities that happen in the public spaces of cities. 99% invisible was produced this week by Benjamin Walker and me Roman Mars with support from Lunar, making a difference with creativity.

It's a project of KALW, the American Institute of Architects San Francisco and the Center for Architecture and Design. To find out more, go to 99%In me Roman Mars and I have a little bonus for the podcasters and website streamers. This week's story is from my friend Benjamin Walker and he has his own program on WFM you call too much information. And if you do not listen to too much information you have basically resigned yourself to have one hour of your week suck when it could actually be awesome.

When I asked him to do a story for 99% invisible, I told him to highlight something that was kind of hidden, that has some greater thought and design put into it. I said, do a story like that penis graffiti story you did for TMI, but I can't use that one because I can't talk about genitalia for four minutes during morning edition. It's actually a really nice story about funny meaning when it's seemingly the most crude of artistic displays, but still too many penises for 730 in the morning. But alas, it's perfect for the podcast. So young master Gilbert, please check with your dad if it's okay, but for the rest of you,

this is Benjamin Walker, again, from his program, too much information. Gail and Smith lives in Brooklyn and works in Manhattan. And so he spends a lot of his time writing the subway and waiting for the subway. Living in New York, you know, you see a lot of graffiti and in the time period in which I've lived here, which is from like the 90s till now, it hasn't been real big classic 70s and 80s train murals. And it hasn't really been that famous New York style that really, you know, got the ball rolling all around the world.

It's quick tags and quick throw ups, not so much big pieces. The majority of these quick tags end up on the posters on the subway platform. You know, the knocked out teeth, the zombie eyes, I call, you know, the blacked out or cut out eye sockets. You know, your mustache is all the way from Chaplin Hitler over to Salvador Dali style, but you know I'm a graphic designer and over time I got I got past the initial feeling of blur and then something really jumped out at me in a way the most obvious things like there's penis is drawn almost on

every single poster. Gailin Smith is the author of New York Dick, a book about the Subway Penis. A primitive little symbol to be sure, but one he believes is giving voice to our true feelings about our media landscape. These posters are ubiquitous. If you haven't traveled in New York, you may not realize that they're on practically all subway

platforms, and there are dozens of them. They're all over the place. They're literally in your space. They're about the height you are, and they're large. Very unlike print ads, and of course, nothing like video type stuff. And you're sort of bombarded with them all the time. And even if you don't think of yourself as being bombarded,

you're hanging with them a lot. And it can get really tedious, especially if there's one you don't like. But in this space, in this context, you really can make your own counter-argument, your own counter-statement, and everyone knows what you mean. How is this different than, say, like a conventional authored graffiti tag? Well, I think one of the things that makes it different, and for me makes it really interesting,

is that it's even more folkloric. There's no authorship, there's no getting famous, well known. And you're not even really getting a lot of cred with your friends. I mean, your friends may have been here giggling with you when you did it, but it's not really like you're, you know, going all city with these dingus. No one's claiming this as art.

Everyone knows it's a little stupid, but there's something about the idiocy that is part of why it works so well, and like in our culture, a way to show absolute disrespect is to draw this penis. It's like that's a very New Yorky conversation, or at least how New Yorkers like to see their themselves. Very aggressive, moderately clever,

and really sort of disrespectful. But honestly disrespectful, the person drawing a penis didn't start this conversation. They didn't think they were winning and dominating this communication. The advertiser and the system did, and so it's a way of putting some breaks on this rampant and constant getting over on one that advertising seems to feel that it's doing. I like advertising okay. I find it very interesting and away in some ads I think are really fun, but a lot of them aren't. Every time I see one of these penises now,

I get kind of excited. It's like finally proof that there are tons of people who feel the same way I do about our ever-encroaching commercial world, tons of people, and they're all saying the same thing. Screw you. Really, it's awesome. This is actually happening now with real people, making real comments in a real space, and

it's more of a community than you might realize. And in New York City subwaysways there's potentially thousands of people that can join in that conversation or can just witness it and give that sort of a little bit of a chuckle, a little bit of a nod like, I'm not saying I agree but I know what you mean. That's an excerpt from Benjamin Walker's too much information. Find a link at the 99% Invisible website. That's 99%Invisible.org. That's it for me this week.

I'm Roman Mars. Take care.