I’m going to open up this blog with a traditionally rebellious post and a thumb to the eye of the sad small people running this town these days.

Most of you are already familiar with the high line. This once abandoned elevated railway on the west side of Manhattan used to be a fun place for an illegal midnight stroll with like minded reprobates. The southern portion of the line was recently reconstructed (photos from 2007 here) and opened to the public. And this is where the problems come in.

It seems that many of the basic civil rights you and I have are no longer in vogue here. The park basically employs its own private security paid for by Friends Of The High Line. These rent a cops have become a nuisance, twice now arresting an artist just trying to sell his work  – which he can do legally at any other park in NYC.  See the video and blog link below for further details.

This is a very sad situation if you ask me. While Friends of The High Line did a great job saving this unique structure from former Mayor Giuliani’s attempts to send in the wrecking ball, 10 years later their own ‘park rangers’ mirror the civil rights stomping ways of the very man they fought against. For an organization run by an artist (former artist? why make art when you’re minting cash?) to be trying to prevent a fellow artist from exercising a right repeated upheld in the courts is, as our esteemed mayor might say, “a disgrace”.

There’s a lot more here:
http://awalkintheparknyc.blogspot.com/2009/12/high-line-artist-arrested-again-foh-dpr.html