Riots

It starts as an almost imperceptible rumble, and then ends with a societal cry of pain. As you read, the tension builds, you become unsettled where you sit; something sinister is afoot. Your eyes willingly travel the lines of the page, the scene is being set, just the right amount of description, a perfect staccato rhythm of words and phrases, resulting in a broiling image of disarray and disorganization. Something dangerous is in the air. Soon it will be upon you, your mind will be filled with a cacophony of shouts and screams, slivers of conversation, slices of pandemonium. Reading further, you discover twisted limbs in grotesque positions, bloodied faces, cruel intentions and inflictions of pain done by one stranger to another. You wince and hope the world you are reading about will once again become civilized and safe. This is a riot, a mob scene, people out of control, people caught up in the moment, murder and rape are happening in the same place where people walked calmly earlier in the day. This can’t be happening, should not be happening but it is happening convincingly so in Dennis Lehane’s new book The Given Day.

I recently finished The Given Day, after patiently waiting for a period of time for the book to come into the library. The Given Day is a big story, with multiple plot lines; the backdrop is Boston in the early 20th century, right after WWI. It is set against the rising tension of an underpaid and overworked police force striving to get their fair share of the salary pie.

Corruption, disasters and terrorism, fear of communism and unbridled racism is the fabric of which this story is woven. Relationships are built while others are destroyed. Betrayal and loyalty are constantly played against each other. This is an epic, a labyrinthine story, culminating in a riot scene that is a turning point in the book. Lehane’s handling of the riot is violent, raw, ugly and real. The impact was such that I found myself rereading passages, so captivating is Lehane’s rendering of such a tragic situation. The Given Day is well worth the 700 plus pages it takes Lehane to tell his story. And for me the riot scenes are the most memorable.

As an aside, there are two other books I was reminded of while reading The Given Day. They too contain very vivid and powerful riot scenes: Nathaniel West’s The Day of Locust and Emile Zola’s Germinal. Both left an indelible mark in my memory, for many reasons one of which is the depiction of human behavior when restraint is no where to be found.

Please join us at the Mid-Manhattan on Tuesday April 7 at 6:30, on the 6th floor, where Dennis Lehane will be talking about The Given Day.

In my last post a few weeks ago I wrote of the history of rioting and protesting in Tompkins Square Park. New York has always been a riotous city, where citizens have time and time again taken to the streets to demonstrate, strike and protest. Over the centuries the nature and character of these events has evolved, as has the reaction of the general public and the police to these group manifestations of displeasure. The subject of popular disorder and collective action or violence tends to be a fairly popular topic among researchers at the library and I’ve found that studying riots and strikes in New York provides a great way to gauge the social and economic climate of the city at different points in time.

Early on in the city’s history, from colonial times up until the first decade of the 19th century, rioting in New York was generally an accepted part of the city’s political culture, a legacy of English tradition. Many scholars who have written on the history of public protest in early America note that prior to the 1830s, most of the protests and more violent riots were of two kinds; either they were of a distinctly political nature, such as the post-revolutionary Anti-Federalist riots, or they were aimed at enforcing community standards and widely held moral values, such as the Doctors’ Riots in 1788 or the bawdy house raids of 1793 and 1799.  read more »

This week marks the 20th anniversary of the protest in Tompkins Square Park that devolved into a 5-hour long clash between police, East Village residents and other park habitués. The day following the riots the New York Post dubbed the incident "Night of Rage" while the Daily News ran with "Tompkins Park Fury." However, there wasn’t just one violent confrontation to be remembered. Rather there were a series of demonstrations and pitched protests during the eighties and early nineties between older residents, newcomers to the neighborhood, the police, neighborhood squatters, and the younger crowd that frequented the park and surrounding streets.

The protests and clashes of late July and early August 1988 were alternatively described in the newspapers as being a result of a newly instated 1 A.M. park curfew, the influx of homeless camped out there, the noise of the crowds that gathered in the park to play music and hang out, and the overarching dispute over housing and perceived gentrification of the neighborhood. These were the years when “Die Yuppie Scum” seemed a valid and meaningful protest chant and graffiti often expressed other anarchist desires and pipe dreams. What drove the August 6th anti-curfew protest over the edge was not only the rowdy and violent behavior of some of the protesters that night, but the extreme reaction of the police force to the protest.  read more »

Have you lived in New York City long enough to remember when it used to be dangerous? Even the Worst Case Scenario Handbook:Travel has a section on how to handle riding the subway here! While this city is now arguably a safe place to live it certainly has a history marked with violence.

Take riots for example. New York City has had many of them; in fact the anniversary of a bloody and misguided riot is upon us. On May 10, 1849 violence erupted, due not to a draft, or a food shortage, or low wages. The Astor Place Riot ensued over a petty dispute between two actors, Edwin Forest, an American and William Macready, an Englishman. The deeper issue, however, was one of nationalism and classism as expressed in this surviving broadside. You can read a very dramatic account of the riot and the events leading to it in The Great Riots of New York City, by J.T. Headley. The event was so dramatic that it actually inspired Richard Nelson's play Two Shakespearean Actors.

Can you think of a present day equivalent to the Astor Place Riot? The closest I came was a fight between the Blue Man Group of Berlin and the one working at Astor Theater over which city has the hippest art scene. But that wouldn't be dangerous, that would just be bizarre.