Photos by Steven
During this past weekend, someone destroyed the plaque about the Tompkins Square Park holiday tree on the fence around the main lawn...
This tree dedication and memorial plaque was new as of the past Christmas season. In early 2020, someone stole the previous version that had been in place for almost 20 years.
Here's a December 2022 photo of the plaque (via Stacie Joy)...
Albert Fabozzi first planted the Christmas tree in 1992 to honor and memorialize his partner, Glenn Barnett, as well as others who died of AIDS.
15 comments:
Pointless vandalism. Another example of the behavior of the unhinged who walk amongst us.
This is so tragic. Even more history denied. Eradicating the past for the stupidity of the present.....
This is why we can't have nice things. Shame to the individuals who did this.
This could just as easily be drunk bros or bored kids. Damn shame.
Just to be clear about Albert Fabozzi and his pal Antonio Pagan who put this tree up partially as a clelbration of removing tent city and closing the park. Many people hated them and they both stoked that anger and were proud of it. I bet that some old skool neighborhood radicals did this. The sign removal actually reminds us ot the Park's history and that many are still around who remember the real history ot the tree.
Idiots who just need to leave
John Penley is correct. I didn't think so, but here is the transcript of Fabozzi's oral history for GV Historic Preservation. In his own words...https://media.villagepreservation.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/15035103/Fabozzi_AlbertTranscriptFinalWebsite-1.pdf
Isn't there some sort of CCTV available to see who did this?
Highly recommend following the link to Fabozzi's oral history. Fascinating life story. Don't know if I can forgive him, though, for having the band shell torn down. Talk about throwing the baby out with the bath water!
The sign is probably for sale at the Tranq Markets on 14th Street.
So, because there's a supposed reason, we as a society and as the people who live here should just accept or forgive the criminal vandalism?
I'm always amused by how many comments present an image of EV as a neighborhood characterized by petty grievances, old grudges, a longing for the past, and romantic notions of drug use and homelessness.
I can remember when TSP was still sketchy, it's better now.
@7:08- So basically what you're saying is that you're delighted that the EV has been gentrified. Which is at odds with a lot of the cranks who post comments here, but the thing is they're a tiny minority of what makes up today's EV. The drug use and entertainment aspect probably go back to the 1850's when opium dens, beer halls, whiskeys bars and live theatre were all the rage. So that has been a constant probably peaking in the late 1980's with the crack epidemic and drugs being openly sold just about everywhere on the streets and inside burnt out tenements. For me the only thing that mattered then that still matters now is the creative aspect, music and art. Doesn't hurt that there a hell of a lot more good restaurants.
John Penley is right.
People have regularly removed the sign crediting Bozo Fabozzi [RIH] (running as a spoiler vs Margarita Lopez, appointed to "community" board" three by bunk buddy Antonio Pagan) and Pagan's "Tompkins Square Neighborhood Coalition" that was created by real estate speculators who moved in across the street at 151 Avenue C, displacing poor and marginal residents living there, who used Pagan (with their monetary support) to rid the park of "undesirables" like the homeless and the poor and squatters and political activists who preceded them.
Strangely, there is an effort afoot (by way of oral histories and skewed "documentaries" by Columbia University students) to revise the TRUE history of events in and around the LES and TSP, lionizing gentrifying scum like Fabozzi and Pagan, who divided our neighborhood against itself, while demonizing those who banded together in an effort to fight the forces of gentrification that used the NYPD in order to further their goals.
That fucking tree should stand on its own with NO reference to its DIRTY HISTORY!!!!
--Chris Flash
Here is a memorial list of some of the Tompkins Square Park Tent City activists who died of AIDS after they were evicted from the park by riot cops right before Christmas. Antonio Pagan and Albert Fabozzi were the two main characters who pushed for the pre-Christmas violent eviction....Ronald Casanova , Terry Taylor , Barbara Henry , Keith Thompson and probably others.
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