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Giuliani era A.R.T.I.S.T. protest demonstration

Lederman Letter
to
Mayor Bloomberg

by Robert Lederman
robert.lederman@worldnet.att.net
April 10, 2002

(See Daily News story following the letter)

4/10/2002

Mayor Mike Bloomberg
City Hall
New York, N.Y. 10007

Dear Mayor Bloomberg,

I represent the street artists of New York City. As you may know, I and my group A.R.T.I.S.T. fought an eight year long struggle with the Giuliani administration about our Constitutional rights. The full details are on the websites listed above. We've won a number of Federal lawsuits and are now as fully protected by the First Amendment as is the NY Times or Bloomberg News.

When you were elected Mayor the street artists breathed a sigh of relief thinking, finally, here's a Mayor with a media background who can understand and respect the First Amendment.

To our surprise, the most blatant violation of our rights that has ever occurred took place this past weekend in SoHo on Saturday 4/6/2002, executed while you were Mayor.

Police officers from the First Precinct commandeered a NYC Sanitation truck then seized and methodically destroyed the property of numerous members of my group by having it crushed in the truck. This was not an accident but a carefully planned operation which is now being investigated by NYPD internal affairs. We have photographs and eyewitness accounts and the police have not denied that this took place.

In 1994 Rudy Giuliani began his term in office by targeting the street artists in SoHo. Having voted for Giuliani I urged the members of A.R.T.I.S.T., which was then a brand new group, not to attack the Mayor but to give him a chance to respond and set things right. I respectfully negotiated with members of his administration, but we got nowhere.

The rest is history. I and my group eventually became Rudy Giuliani's most persistent, most visible and most determined critics.

I'd like to give you the benefit of the doubt, to assume that you are not as yet aware of what happened this past Saturday in SoHo and that once you find out about it, you will immediately set things straight. As in 1994 the members of my group are clamoring for me to begin organizing protests, this time against you.

I've contacted a number of your deputy Mayors and your press secretary, Ed Skyler, who knows me for a few years, about what happened and asked them to convey this message to you. I hope that by now they've done so.

In 1994 Rudy Giuliani seriously underestimated the ability of street artists to win in court or to affect his image. He laughed us off in 1994 but by 1995 and right through the rest of his term in office he wasn't laughing.

You'll find my Giuliani portraits and signs in media coverage of him by every media outlet in the world. Our lawsuits against Giuliani are studied in universities and law schools across America. Mr. Skyler can attest to our determination once aroused.

We are now aroused.

Eight years of being abused is enough. The City has already wasted millions of dollars on our lawsuits with millions more still pending. How much the Giuliani administration spent falsely arresting us and pretending to prosecute our cases (in eight years not one case was ever prosecuted against a NYC street artist) is probably impossible to accurately estimate.

Our current pending lawsuit, Lederman et al v Giuliani has already been decided in our favor by four different courts. Yet, Giuliani-like, your Corporation Counsel is appealing yet again.

Meanwhile, throughout the City, the NYPD is harassing street artists in ways that could almost make us miss Rudy Giuliani. What happened in SoHo on Saturday is just one particularly graphic example. Even at his most excessive Mayor Giuliani never had our property crushed in a garbage truck.

Mr. Mayor, I am appealing to you as a lifelong New Yorker who wants very much to see you succeed, to please not ignore this issue. You've made it clear that you are not Rudy Giuliani, which I think is a wise decision. I hope you will not fall into the same trap of underestimating street artists.

We may not have lots of money but we do have an extraordinary degree of access to the public and to the media through being on the street everyday. This coming Saturday, weather permitting, we will be in SoHo on West Broadway.

I invite you to come down there and address what happened. I will be on West Broadway between Prince Street and Spring.

I also invite you to set up a meeting between myself and one of your aides in order to discuss the general issue of street artist harassment by the NYPD and the specific issue of compensating those whose property was destroyed on 4/6. Perhaps for once we can work this out without it being necessary to file still more lawsuits.

I hope in the very near future to be able to tell street artists and the people of New York City that Mike Bloomberg is indeed a man who respects the First Amendment and artists. I look forward to your reply.

Sincerely Yours,
Robert Lederman

NY Daily News 4/12/2002
By RALPH R. ORTEGA
Daily News Staff Writer

Peddlers Take Stand
Vs.
Cops for Art's Sake

Street art peddlers doing business in SoHo vowed to keep their work from being trashed by the NYPD tomorrow.

It's not that the cops have suddenly become art critics, explained Robert Lederman, a New Jersey painter who has been at odds with the city for years.

Lederman heads a group that says police commandeered a sanitation truck on West Broadway last Saturday to throw away 20 art sales displays that were considered abandoned under the law.

The trashing infuriated artists who had left the displays only for a few minutes to buy coffee, or to use a bathroom.

Dozens of the painters, writers and sculptors planned to be back tomorrow, watching to make sure the police don't repeat last week's cleanup without treading on their First Amendment rights.

"If they think they want to come and destroy some more displays, come on down,"said Lederman, president of a group known as Artists' Response To Illegal State Tactics.

The NYPD has launched an Internal Affairs Bureau investigation to examine how last week's enforcement was carried out.

"No artwork was thrown away,"said Lt. Brian Burke, a department spokesman. He said unattended displays that had been left overnight were treated as abandoned property and handed over to the Sanitation Department after repeated warnings to the artists.

City Councilman Dirk McCall, who represents SoHo, said he expected cops to only target unlicensed street vendors - "the people who sell those really tacky T-shirts, like 'I Love New York,' 'I Visited New York,' and pictures of the World Trade Center.

"It appears there may have been a misunderstanding by some of the officers actually doing the enforcement,"McCall added. "This wasn't directed at artists at all."

The disposal harkened back to former Mayor Rudy Giuliani's failed attempt to force street art peddlers to get licenses.

Lederman, 51, formerly of Brooklyn and now living in East Rutherford, N.J., sued the city in 1996. He won a ruling from the 2nd Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals that found licensing violated the First Amendment rights of artists.

Lederman charged that the city is resorting to desperate measures by calling unattended art displays "abandoned"to justify disposing of them.

"The police see these displays every weekend,"he said. "They clearly knew that they weren't abandoned."

Original Publication Date: 4/12/02

To a Directory of Mr.Lederman's Essays

Robert Lederman is an artist, writer and activist and is also the President of the street artist advocacy group, A.R.T.I.S.T.
Click here for an archive of A.R.T.I.S.T. related news articles on the Freedom Forum website

His essays and Op-Eds have appeared in hundreds of alternative publications as well as the Daily News, Penthouse, Africa Sun Times, Street News and The Shadow.
Lederman was falsely arrested 41 times for his anti-Giuliani activities and was never convicted of any of the charges. As a result of the arrests, he's won four Federal lawsuits and overturned three laws.
He is best known for having created hundreds of paintings of Mayor Giuliani as a Hitler like dictator which were carried in demonstrations throughout the eight years of the Giuliani administration. Images of his paintings and articles about his arrests and lawsuits have appeared on all of the major television networks hundreds of times as well as frequently appearing in the NY Times, Daily News, NY Post, Newsday, Newsweek, People, The Washington Post, LA Times and NY Magazine.

Robert Lederman,
President of A.R.T.I.S.T.
(Artists' Response To Illegal State Tactics)
robert.lederman@worldnet.att.net

For a detailed exposition on the West Nile issue
http://www.nospray.org/
For an article on the Manhattan Institute go to
http://www.konformist.com/2000/rudyg.htm

If you would like to help oppose the spraying,
please write to the
No Spray Coalition
PO Box 334
Peck Slip Station
NYC, NY 10272-0334
or call the No Spray hotline at (718) 670-7110.

Any funds you can send to help continue the lawsuit
and this work are greatly appreciated.

Important Note:
Mr. Lederman has explained that his articles posted here are not to be taken as official statements by the No-Spray Coalition of which he is a member or of the "No-Spray" lawsuit in which he is a plaintiff.

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And by clicking here, you'll see an old suggestion (May 2003) of how Democrats could/should have protested the Republican convention and G.W. Bush.

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