Documenting the Tompkins Square riot of ‘88
RIOTS continued from p. 9
city-ordered curfew. On this night,
though, the curfew had nothing to do
with the riot. In the book “Resistance:
A Radical Political and Social History
of the Lower East Side,” another Ninth
Precinct commander, Michael Julian,
says that the homeless were allowed to
stay in the park. In the same anthology,
Ron Casanova, a homeless person living
in the park, says they made a deal
with the cops: The junkies, the homeless
and others could stay in the park,
as long as they keep out of the front section
of the park.
And the spin that the cops were all
young and inexperienced wasn’t true.
The cops I got indicted were career
highway offi cers, a sergeant, other experienced
offi cers, and none were new
recruits. Helicopter cops were not 20
years old, the commanding offi cers
were not newbies. McNamara and his
boys were experienced, and Darcy was
set to retire. It was McNamara and the
commanders who caused the chaos and
lost control.
In documenting protests in the neighborhood,
I got arrested 13 times, had
teeth knocked out, was knocked unconscious.
There was an attempt by two
Ninth Precinct cops and two assistant
district attorneys to set up palm card
reader, Patrick Geoffrois, and me as
participants in the Monica Beerle murder
and dismemberment. Later, Daniel
Rakowitz was arrested and charged
with the murder. He was found not
guilty by reasons of insanity. Thankfully,
the case they were trying to build
against us was so fl imsy and ridiculous
that it never got traction.
There was a setup where Elsa and
During the late 1980s, Tompkins Square Park’s sprawling Tent City
was home to hundreds of homeless people. A couple of denizens held
a banner saracastically dubbing it “Trump City,” referring to Donald
Trump’s eponymous megadevelopment project planned on the West
Side railyards south of W. 72nd St., which was facing stiff community
opposition at the time.
I were given a limousine ride and accommodations
to document the New
Hampshire presidential election. Nobody
knew Elsa stayed home. N.Y.P.D.,
F.B.I. and other enforcement authorities
showed up with a search warrant.
They took a blank tape from my Manhattan
Neighborhood Network publicaccess
cable TV show on which we had
discussed the Rakowitz case. Imagine
if they had gotten the riot tape. I have
visited Daniel for 20 years trying to unwind
what actually happened.
My tape was a game changer in the
history of the use of video cameras to
Letters to The Editor
LETTERS continued from p. 8
I can’t say enough about my mom because
she was like an angel who walked
this earth.
My Aunt Christina was the youngest of
eight children and worked at the restaurant
for 20 years. She was at The Bagel
with Nick Spadafora when John Kennedy
Jr. died in a plane crash. At the time,
anchorwoman Barbara Nevins of Channel
5 News was a regular customer. She
asked my brother Peter if she could bring
in the news crew to interview Christina
and Nick about John Kennedy Jr., who
was a regular at The Bagel while he was
studying at N.Y.U. for his law degree.
The crew came in and the interview was
televised on Channel 5 News. Filomena
told John after he failed his fi rst test for
the bar, she was glad because she would
have him for another year.
Robert T. Vitrano
Bagel was the Village
To The Editor:
Re “Filomena Vitrano, 96, the owner
of The Bagel” (obituary, July 19):
The Vitrano Family is Greenwich Village.
Tony Russomanno took me to The
Bagel in 1973. Christina made the most
amazing cakes and pies — all fl avor, no
weight. I have no idea how she did it. Her
son who died, John, worked there every
single day from the mid-1970s until he
moved to Florida in 1996. John kept the
place orderly and very, very calm. Fil,
John and Christina, Evilio and Nick had
the gift of hospitality. They knew how to
make you comfortable regardless of how
busy it was and you could sit as long as
you wished.
The orange juice was squeezed to order.
But the amazing dish was cheese
and eggs. Somehow they made a perfect
blend of cheese and scrambled eggs.
PHOTO BY JOHN PENLEY
document protests. It is one thing to
document. But without standing behind
the documentation, it can more easily
be neutralized as evidence. Standing
up is step two. Appearing on “Oprah,”
I pushed the idea of “Little Brother Is
Watching Big Brother.” Fox reporter
Shawn did a segment on the use of this
new technology and the democratization
of the media. The media always
tried to minimize what I was doing by
calling me an amateur — which is fi ne,
because I want all the amateurs to realize
they, too, can do what I did. All you
have to do is do it.
Their burgers and steaks came from the
butcher on John St.; the meat was the
best anywhere.
My deepest regret is that my three
daughters never got to go there; my fi rst
was born in 2002. Yes, it was the Village,
it was New York at its most authentic. I
loved every second of that life. Miss it
more than anything.
Walter Sabo
Davis’s scary dogs
To The Editor:
Re “Bruce Davis, founder, face of
1-800-LAWYERS” (obituary, July 19):
I wouldn’t call him an animal lover.
He kept two Rottweilers in his basement
for years, and when another dog went by,
they would repeatedly fl ing themselves
against the windows, growling and barking.
I really thought they might break the
One of the most consequential impacts
that the 1988 Police Riot had
on the N.Y.P.D. was the stunning revelation
that something was seriously
wrong with the force. Then David Dinkins
became mayor and he changed the
city more than anyone. He understood
the problems in the N.Y.P.D. They centralized
the Police Department. And he
brought in the Mollen Commission to
clean up the force; dirty cops had been
shaking down drug dealers.
Meanwhile, on the Lower East Side,
the opposition continued for four solid
years, with confl icts like the Memorial
Day Riot and the May Day Riot,
and hundreds of arrests. The confl icts
involved the park, the homeless crisis,
squat evictions. There were bonfi res in
the middle of Avenue A, injuries on both
sides, court cases. In the end, they stupidly
took down the band shell. The city
ultimately would go on to sell 11 squats
to the people living there. But the ones
who won the most were the cops.
Dinkins gave Giuliani a razor-sharp,
military-ready N.Y.P.D. In comes Bill
Bratton, the intellectual working with
the Manhattan Institute, the think tank
started by William Casey after he retired
from running the C.I.A. Bratton
brought in “broken windows” policing,
shut down street corner activity, and
with CompStat, focused commanders
on keeping crime numbers down.
This account of the park riots just
skims the surface. As an immigrant
from Canada, I viewed what I was doing
as a duty to my new American community.
The Lower East Side has become
such a deep part of my being. I believe I
have lived the American Dream. Fighting
is a part of preserving the dream.
windows. They were guard dogs.
One night his two black German Shepherds,
under the careless “watch” of his
son (not their trainer, who was the one
who was supposed to walk them) tore
my friend’s dog apart in the Washington
Square Park dog run. When my friend
went to his door to tell him, his younger
son told Davis that he thought it was a
scam. Like father, like son.
Bonnie Slotnick
E-mail letters, not longer than 250 words
in length, to news@thevillager.com or fax
to 212-229-2790 or mail to The Villager,
Letters to the Editor, 1 MetroTech North,
10th fl oor, Brooklyn, NY 11201. Please
include phone number for confi rmation
purposes. The Villager reserves the right
to edit letters for space, grammar, clarity
and libel. Anonymous letters will not be
published.
10 August 2, 2018 TheVillager.com
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