The local paper for the Upper East Side
OCTOBER 18-24,2018
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WEEK OF OCTOBER
18-24
P.15
2018
MELEE FOLLOWS GOP CLUB EVENT CONFLICT NYPD under scrutiny for response to violence following Gavin McInnes event; police seeking 12 individuals BY MICHAEL GAROFALO
State Senator Liz Krueger stands by a plaque at Greenacre Park on East 51st Street at ceremonies earlier this month to mark the naming of the 47-year-old oasis, a gift of the Rockefeller family, to the National Register of Historic Places. Photo courtesy of Greenacre Foundation / Howard Jay Heyman
MINI-PARK SCORES MEGA-HONOR PRESERVATION Federal recognition bestowed on Greenacre Park, a tiny East Side oasis that had an outsized impact on streetscape and urban design BY DOUGLAS FEIDEN
Up until the late-1960s, the standard city park occupied three acres or more. It almost always fronted an avenue. It offered multiple entrances to pedestrians. And it cut off the street grid to barricade traffic flow. Then, mid-century planners devised the vest-pocket park: It could be as small as the footprint of a single building. It could fit on a discreet side street. It could sit amid shops and stoops in the very heart of midtown. Spawned by urban renewal, and the need to fill gaps in the streetscape left by the demolition of chunks of the urban fabric, a movement was born to bring little plots
It recharges our souls, lifts our moods, lowers our blood pressure, reduces our stress and raises our self-esteem.” State Parks Commissioner Rose Harvey of green into the city’s park-starved precincts. Leading the charge was Greenacre Park, a three-level, mid-block sliver park — dominated by a 25-foot-high waterfall that tumbles off granite blocks with a pool at its base — that opened on East 51st Street in 1971. A gift from the philanthropist Abby Rockefeller Mauze, the older sister of ex-Gov. Nelson Rockefeller, the privately owned, publicly accessible,
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New York became the latest American city to play host to riotous political violence Oct. 12 when violent clashes between members of a far-right group and anti-fascist protesters erupted on the streets of the Upper East Side following a Metropolitan Republican Club event featuring the right-wing agitator and provocateur Gavin McInnes. Police are seeking nine individuals affiliated with the Proud Boys, a farright organization founded by McInnes, on charges of riot or attempted assault. The NYPD is also seeking three anti-fascist protesters police say were involved in the fighting, also on charges of riot or attempted assault. City Council Speaker Corey Johnson described the incident as “a violent mob attack by a hate group” at an Oct. 15 press conference in front of the Metropolitan Republican Club, at 122 East 83rd St. The Proud Boys’ “sole mission is to stoke fear and incite violence, not just here in New York City, but around the country,” Johnson said, referencing members’ involvement in recent violence in Portland, Oregon, and the August 2017 “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, at which a woman was killed by a car driven by a white supremacist and dozens of others were injured. “Did we learn anything?” Johnson asked. “The Metropolitan Republican Club apparently did not.” Videos widely circulated on social media after the event show Proud Boys members kicking and punching several individuals on the 82nd Street
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The Metropolitan Republican Club was vandalized prior to an event featuring Proud Boys founder Gavin McInnes. Photo: Michael Garofalo sidewalk after the McInnes event as police officers arrived on scooters. Some witnesses and elected leaders have questioned the NYPD’s failure to make any arrests at the scene. NYPD Commissioner James P. O’Neill rejected the criticism at an Oct. 15 press briefing. “Did you see the video?” O’Neill asked. “It was two or three cops on scooters. There was a group of about 20 people. As soon as they pulled up, everybody dispersed. The cops went to render aid to the people that appeared to be injured and they were refused, quite frankly.” “We should not be scapegoating our cops, who responded to a very chaotic scene,” NYPD Chief of Department Terence Monahan said at a later press conference. Donovan Richards, the chair of the City Council’s Public Safety Committee, which is responsible for oversight of the NYPD, forcefully criticized the department’s response to the incident as “nonexistent,” and called police “inept, incompetent and derelict in their
duties.” “We’ve seen schoolyard fights where people have been arrested on-scene,” Richards said. “Officers witnessed these individuals kicking and punching individuals. Without a doubt, those folks should have been arrested.” In a statement, the Metropolitan Republican Club defended its decision to invite McInnes: “We want to foster civil discussion, but never endorse violence. Gavin’s talk on Friday night, while at times was politically incorrect and a bit edgy, was certainly not inciting violence.”
CONTINUED ON PAGE 50 Jewish women and girls light up the world by lighting the Shabbat candles every Friday evening 18 minutes before sunset. Friday, October 19 – 5:52pm. For more information visit www.chabaduppereastside.com
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