Radical Walking Tours of New York City, Third Edition

INTRODUCTION

When I started Radical Walking Tours, on a rainy weekend in 1991 with nine people, I had no idea that all the sunny days I had spent at research in the library would lead to such success. Seven years later, after putting every free minute into the tours, I’ve a new appreciation for the small businessman. Radical Walking Tours grew out of almost twenty years of political activism and much reading. It seemed there wasn’t a book I read on politics that didn’t mention either a person or place related to New York City. Everyone from Fidel Castro to Leon Trotsky to John Reed to Abbie Hoffman has lived or worked in Manhattan. Unlike the Trumps and Rockefellers, however, there are few if any plaques of commemoration or buildings named in their honor: in the future, Trump Plaza will be Emma Goldman Plaza, serving as a free hotel for radicals in need of rest; Rockefeller Center will be a labor-organizing complex, and the Empire State Building will be a shelter for those in need of a home.

Until that day, however, I feel it’s my duty to talk about a hidden history of the city.

Six years ago, a friend flattered me by seeing my work as important in that respect. She spent a year in Russia, and told of how previous sites of the Communist Regime were being replaced or covered with advertising billboards and other vulgar promotions for capitalism. Although Orwell’s 1984 was about the Soviet Union, the parts about the Ministry of Information—the branch of totalitarian government responsible for changing history in books and magazines—are analogous to the United States today since a small number of corporations own the media and function similarly. How many times do we organize an important demonstration, only to watch the mainstream press, which reaches ninety percent of the population, entirely distort what happened or leave it out entirely, making it a non-event?

Another inspiration for the tours was to educate native New Yorkers and political organizers who walk by important sites every day and have no idea of their importance; in my experience, younger organizers don’t tend to read the history of political movements to see what worked, what didn’t, and why; it’s my hope the tours inspire curiosity. Also, the ’80s and ’90s have been so difficult for organizing, and I want to inspire people to keep up the good fight by pointing out periods over the last two centuries when it’s been less difficult, even thrilling. Finally, I’ve had a fascination with buildings or sites that are now decaying or ignored, and yet were the center of mass movements in previous eras. Like so many of the great political activists of the past, it’s important that they too be remembered and respected.

—Bruce Kayton

New York City

August 1998

PHOTO BY MYRNA KAYTON

GREENWICH VILLAGE is one of the more serene and peaceful places to go, whether you’re living in New York City or just passing through.

The Greenwich Village of legend is not really the same place today. Often, as I’m walking through the Village, someone with a tourist map in hand will ask, Where is Greenwich Village? I feel as though I’m lying when I tell them they are smack in the middle of it, since the Greenwich Village they are looking for doesn’t exist anymore. They want to see bohemian-types engaged in counter-cultural activity, like John Reed running to a meeting of The Masses, or actors from the Provincetown Playhouse rehearsing an experimental play in a cafe, or a Woody Guthrie or young Bob Dylan strumming a guitar on a street-corner. That Greenwich Village doesn’t exist anymore, and perhaps today only those with an income of the current Bob Dylan could afford to live in the Village.

The physicality of that era is gone too; many of the beautiful winding streets have been destroyed by the extension of Sixth and Seventh Avenues at the early part of the century and newer, more sterile-looking apartment buildings have replaced the beautiful three- or four-story nineteenth-century homes.

There’s a famous story about anarchist waiter Hippolyte Havel who worked at Polly’s Restaurant on MacDougal Street, who famously called the customers Bourgeois Pigs. One day a customer asked him the boundaries of Greenwich Village. Hippolyte responded, Greenwich Village is a state of mind; it has no boundaries. I hope the following tours take you to this state of mind.

GREENWICH VILLAGE I TOUR

➊ WASHINGTON SQUARE PARK—The Washington Square Arch (see photo on page 19) is a major symbol of Greenwich Village. The original was erected half a block north of its present location on the 100th anniversary of George Washington’s taking the oath of office as the first president of the United States. It cost $2,756 (the approximate monthly rent of a one-bedroom apartment in the area). It was built for the enjoyment of the rich living north of the park, not for the immigrants to the south. Local sugar merchant William Rhinelander Stewart was so impressed with it, and its potential to give a boost to local property values, that he raised $128,000 to build the current structure, completed in 1892. Atop the original arch was an all-black figure of George Washington, an irony considering the Father of Our Country lived on an estate built by slave labor, owned more than three hundred slaves upon his death, and was even against letting Blacks fight in the American Revolution until there were major manpower shortages.

Since we’re asked to remember Mr. Washington through countless statues, plaques, parks, and towns around the country named in his honor, let’s remember also that at one point he was the richest person in the colonies and that his estate, along with those of the other founding fathers, was built by slaves who receive no such tribute. After he was dead, Mr. Washington exhibited great generosity toward the human beings called his slaves: he gave a full one-third their freedom in his will.

Greenwich Village I Tour

There have been many symbolic take-overs of the arch throughout history. Probably the most famous was in 1917 when members of the bohemian Liberal Club climbed to the top and proclaimed The Independent Republic of Greenwich Village. This crowd, known for carousing, included wellknown artists John Sloane and Marcel Duchamp. The ceremony consisted of Greenwich Villager Gertrude Drick repeating the word Whereas over and over again. Though this was a very lighthearted take-over, another attempt to declare the Free Republic of Washington Square, this one in Central Park in 1913, was taken so seriously by the New York City Police Department that machine guns were set up and an arrest was made, though rains kept the crowds down and prevented further government violence.

Another famous take-over occurred in 1968. Organized by Students Against War and Racism, they barricaded themselves at the top during the Fifth Avenue Peace Parade against the Vietnam War. They flew a banner, along with the flag of the National Liberation Front of Vietnam, which read The Streets Belong to the People.

Since the arch has been a symbol of freedom, always check the lock on the door at the side to see if fate will grant you a trip to the top.

Washington Square Park itself has a long and glorious history as a potter’s field for those too poor to afford their burial; also a burial ground for Native Americans, African Americans (see Greenwich Village III Tour) and Germans. After a stint as a military parade ground, it became a park for good in the early 1850s and has a long history of the great spirit of public life, through numerous informal folksinging and comedy sessions, magic shows, walking tours, the dog run, and sports of all kinds happening simultaneously, blending peace and anarchy.

In the late 1950s, this urban oasis was threatened when the New York City Planning Commission decided to extend Fifth Avenue through the park as a highway. Years of protest followed, led by a new magazine named The Village Voice and former first lady Eleanor Roosevelt. In 1963, the plan was defeated and a large party followed in celebration.

In 1961, when Robert Wagner was mayor, there were a series of protests over a curfew imposed on those noisy, obnoxious...acoustic guitar-playing folksingers. Ten people were arrested and fifty others fled to the refuge of Judson Memorial Baptist Church south of the park. Future conservative Mayor Ed Koch was the lawyer representing the folksingers during this period; twenty-eight years later, as mayor, he imposed his own curfew in an attempt to keep the homeless out. The late Mayor Koch lived in an apartment overlooking the park for over 30 years at Two Fifth Avenue.

Perhaps the best counter-cultural action was when the Yippies fought the restriction against leafletting in or within 150 feet of the park. In court, they won a suspension of the restriction, quickly running to the park with copies of the judgment, passing them out like leaflets. The police, unaware of the change in policy, arrested them for handing out copies of the judgment which stated they could no longer be arrested for handing out leaflets.

Many great protests ended in Washington Square Park, from anti–Gulf War demonstrations in the early 1990s to anti-curfew protests over Tompkins Square Park, as well as the Pot Parade, an annual event staged to protest the criminalization of marijuana.

Most recently, in December 2014, as part of a series of protests against racist police brutality, over 30,000 marched from the park to midtown and eventually into Brooklyn. It was one of a series of nationwide protests that included Boston, Oakland, and Washington, DC to protest the murders of Eric Garner (New York), Michael Brown (Ferguson, Missouri), and Tamir Rice (Cleveland). In Manhattan the main protest ended in midtown but some protesters continued to the Brooklyn Bridge (where two police officers were injured) and into Brooklyn.

➋ a) NEW YORK UNIVERSITY (Main building, 100 Washington Square East)—New York University is the largest private university in the country, educating thirty-five thousand students who can manage the $66,000 annual tuition, room and board. They have tried to turn the Washington Square Park area into a local campus, and have taken over more buildings each year, forcing out older residents by raising rents, and knocking down some of those older buildings that gave Greenwich Village its reputation.

The first NYU building went up in 1835, and looked more like a gothic church than a university building. Prisoners in Sing-Sing Prison in Ossining, New York quarried the marble without any pay, but unionized stonecutters organized against the practice, which was getting more and more common. In 1834, they rioted in front of one of the contractor’s buildings at 160 Broadway, causing $2,000 in damage and the intervention of the New York State National Guard. This was the first labor riot in New York State history and foreshadowed NYU’s turbulent relations with its unions.

Struggles against the university continue and include demands for higher pay, the complaint of discrimination against African-American and Latino workers, and most recently the attempt to charge workers for healthcare benefits.

NYU has assets totalling over $2 billion and remains a tax-free institution, even though it has investments in just about any industry you can name. They currently lease numbers One to Seven Washington Square North and as lessees, not owners, should not be entitled to tax exemptions. They are, however; a special tax exemption for NYU was passed in the New York State Legislature in 1984 that has cost the city over $8 million in lost revenue through 1992. The amount the taxpayers fund this private university keeps rising.

b) TRIANGLE SHIRTWAIST FACTORY FIRE OF 1911 (29 Washington Place, plaque on building corner at Greene Street)—One hundred forty-six workers, mostly young immigrant Jewish women, were killed in a flash fire in what was the largest sweatshop in New York City. The tragic deaths became a symbol of the horrible garment industry practices at that time. If it hadn’t been a Saturday, when only half of the one thousand-person workforce was there, perhaps double the number would have perished.

The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory occupied the 8th, 9th and 10th floors of the building and as the fire spread dozens threw themselves from the windows, fearing death by incineration. Bodies were found piled up against doors that opened inward instead of outward; the only fire escape collapsed, and the fire department’s hoses couldn’t properly reach the top floors.

The owners of the factory escaped via the roof and lived to be acquitted in what was widely reported as a fixed, Tammany-Hall trial, involving bribes and perjured testimony. Five days after the tragedy the factory moved to 5–11 University Place (where an NYU dormitory replaced the original building) and the owners were fined for piling sewing machines against an exit door.

Despite surviving a violent strike in 1909, the International Ladies Garment Workers Union (ILGWU) had not won full union rights at the shop. The owners had been fined many times for running an unsafe workplace, but there were few inspectors and the emphasis was on making the most shirtwaist blouses in the quickest time while taking up every available space with desks, sewing machines and piles of cloth. We like to think that those days are over, but in 1995 the General Accounting Office of the U.S. Government certified that New York City hosted forty-five hundred sweatshops employing fifty thousand people.

➌ ED KOCH’S RENT-CONTROLLED AND RENT-STABILIZED APARTMENT (14 Washington Place)—While mayor, Ed Koch gave away hundreds of millions of dollars in tax breaks to the real estate industry to build luxury office and apartment houses. He was never worried about rent himself, however, since he lived in this apartment from the 1960s through 1989. Many of the luxury office buildings built in the 1980s are still empty. Mr. Koch’s personal charisma and joke-telling ability endeared him to many middle-class New Yorkers, while his policies made it tougher for those trying to make ends meet. I’m often amazed when, on my tours, I talk about bombings, socialism, communism, and revolution but no one has any objections until I criticize Ed Koch, apparently a folk hero to many people.

Walking down Greene Street, notice the restaurant on the corner of West Fourth Street (31 West Fourth Street). It was the Campus Coffee Shop for more than thirty years until 1993 when New York University forced them to close by increasing their rent by over 300 percent

➍ COURANT INSTITUTE/WARREN WEAVER HALL AT NYU (251 Mercer Street)—Two hundred students occupied this building in May 1970 to protest NYU’s ties to the then-named Atomic Energy Commission and held the $3.5 million computer hostage for a bargain price of $100,000 to raise bail for the Black Panthers for the Panther 21 trial. The protest was part of the nationwide student strike against the Vietnam War and, more specifically, Nixon’s secret bombing of Cambodia. When the NYU administration refused to budge, the anarchist group Transcendental Students, wanted to use magnets to erase the information on the computer tapes, while the Marxists of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) wanted to ignite Molotov cocktails and blow the computer up. SDS’s plans won out, but the burning explosives were extinguished before any damage was done. Two professors who took part in the occupation were jailed.

➎ ELMER HOLMES BOBST LIBRARY (70 Washington Square South)—NYU has a great library which, outside of the important tenth floor, is open only to students and faculty. The tenth floor houses one of the best radical libraries in the country; open to the public, the Tamiment Institute Library is the place to go to see old copies of the Jewish Daily Forward, Emma Goldman’s Mother Earth magazine, old socialist and communist leaflets and newspapers, as well as great union collections in the Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives. As I always talk about the immoral actions of people who have buildings named for them, I must point out that Elmer Holmes Bobst was a friend of former President Richard Nixon and was accused of sexually molesting his own granddaughter.

➏ ARTHUR T. VANDERBILT HALL, NYU (40 Washington Square South)—This block was owned by Papa Strunsky, who charged cheap rent in his aging apartment buildings and was extremely generous to the artists-tenants, letting rent slide if they needed it. The buildings were eventually knocked down after Columbia University sold the block to NYU in 1950 for $1 million. NYU erected the current Law School in 1951.

In 1911, a Harvard University graduate moved into an aging apartment building at what was then 42 Washington Square South. He shared the $30 per month rent with three roommates and went on to write Ten Days That Shook the World and Insurgent Mexico, and become one of the most famous political organizers in the United States. His name? John Reed, perhaps better known as the guy played by Warren Beatty in the movie Reds of the early 1980s.

➐ POLLY’S RESTAURANT/PROVINCETOWN PLAY HOUSE (137/133 MacDougal Street)—Polly’s Restaurant (in the basement of the current building at 137 MacDougal Street) was run by an anarchist, Paula Holladay, in the 1910s. It hosted a whole cast of writers, poets, painters and radicals, including the members of the Liberal Club who climbed to the top of the Washington Square Arch. The previously mentioned Hippolyte Havel cooked and waited tables here, snarling at the middleclass customers, calling them Bourgeois Pigs.

129 MacDougal Street—former site of the lesbian bar of the 1920s that had a sign proclaiming, Men are admitted but not welcome.

PHOTO BY BRUCE KAYTON

The Liberal Club was located above Polly’s; it featured avant garde poetry readings, cubist art exhibitions, and one-act plays. Women did unheard-of things in front of the club like smoke and talk about free love and getting the right to vote. In 1914, a painting exhibition by the Liberal Club, featuring nudes, was shut down by the police.

The Provincetown Playhouse was founded in Provincetown, Massachusetts in 1915, coming to the Village in 1916. It featured Eugene O’Neill, John Reed, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Max Eastman, and Louise Bryant (Reed’s future wife). The Provincetown Playhouse staged experimental work, debuted Eugene O’Neill in America, and in an action unprecedented at that time, had African-American actors play African-American characters. The current Provincetown Playhouse is owned by the NYU Law Foundation. After sitting empty for several years, it reopened