Tompkins Square History – A Live Slide Presentation by Eric Drooker

Native New Yorker Eric Drooker will project hundreds of slides as he recounts his childhood in Tompkins Square and traces the park’s history back to the 19th century.

This event will be held alongside The Gates of Tompkins, a new exhibit at the Museum of Reclaimed Urban Space in NYC. The exhibit opens on Thursday, May 28th, with opening events at 4pm, and is on view Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays,12-5pm, through June 21st.

Tompkins Square Park Re-Design Campaign

After a financial crisis that affected New York City in the 70s and 80s , Lower East Side residents took back their neighborhood, fixed up buildings, and reclaimed the gardens, creating a sustainable, community way of life. Tompkins Square Park became an amazing example of the community's vibrance, cultivating music, art, and theater. However, once the city returned to a stronger financial position, authorities sought to take back community housing, gardens, and this new sustainable way of life and undermine these community-based projects. The neighborhood residents put up a fight to stop the gentrification, and Tompkins Square Park became a battleground. A protest encampment was established in the park, and what is known as the Tompkins Square Park Riots went on for several years. Eventually, after using a lot of violence, the city closed the park in 1991 and destroyed the bandshell. When they reopened the park, it was re-designed in a way that discouraged the free exchange of art, music, and public assembly. It has been that way ever since--fences everywhere you look. With this Redesign initiative, we hope to be able to put pressure on the Parks Department to re-design it in a way that maximizes community engagement and brings back the creative spirit of the neighborhood.

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Host or Publisher Museum of Reclaimed Urban Space