Street Artist: NYPD Subway Crackdown Is Killing Livelihoods, Creativity

People connect to the music, to sound. And the kindness we experiences down there as buskers is the kind that often leaves you speechless. For instance, on hot days there are people who I don’t even know who will just on their own accord bring me bottled water, placing the bottles, without a word, into my case. Total strangers will ask ‘Where have you been? You been ok? We’ve missed you!’ I’ve had girls, arms filled with shopping bags, give me things they’ve just bought, because they loved the music and wanted to show their appreciation but didn’t have any cash. From the smiles to the nods, from the donations to the dancing, the kindness flows freely under New York.

Buskers are curious souls. We’re like urban anthropologists. We see everything. We feel the moods of the city, the country and often the planet very intensely. We notice it all. We have to so we know how to connect day in and day out to those around us without words. There are days down there that I feel like I’m a Red Cross worker in a vibrational disaster zone. But I still keep trying to reach out & break through that wall. Every day we want to make it work, to connect with the hundreds who pass by and hear us under New York. And we do. Just some days it takes a little longer than others.

The NYPD has been making a big deal in the media about their crackdown on subway performers. What is really happening underground? Do you notice a difference?

Yes. The ‘Brattonization’ of the subways has been rough on us all. They’ve made it clear that we will be arrested or ticketed for performing in the Subways. It seems clear that the musicians, artists, dancers…etc are all now lumped into the category of those ‘undesirables’ who need to be eliminated from the island of Manhattan. But for what reason? Well, I have my thoughts on that. And yes, I feel the pushback. The Subways are pretty quiet now. There are days when I don’t see any musicians, and this is the height of the tourist season when the trains are usually at their most bustling art-wise. Normally at this time of year the underground would be bursting with music from every corner. But this year, even Times Square, is virtually silent. In the ten years I’ve been performing underground, there’ve always been sweeps, but since Bratton came in, it’s been intense, very long-winded and very aggressive. I get really pained thinking about it because I feel like they are targeting my family. I don’t see anyone anymore, none of my friends when I go down there to sing. I keep thinking back to Nazi Germany where people were just ripped from their communities for having done absolutely nothing but existing. It makes me sad every time I think of my world, what has been my family of buskers all ticketed and/or arrested in such a forceful manner for simply making music, dancing and making people smile. It does not bode well for anyone in New York City when the artists, the spontaneity and creativity – the heartbeat – is ripped from this island.

What are people being arrested or ticketed for?

Oh wow, the list of excuses the NYPD give is lengthy and never ending. They’ll say my guitar case is a safety hazard, that I’m blocking traffic, distracting New Yorkers from being alert to dangers on the platform, or the best one is that whatever spot I’m performing in is a terrorist target – that last excuse is usually whispered by a cop leaning in really close as if he’s sharing some major trade secret.

There’s a big push to ‘sanction’ all art thereby eliminating all spontaneity and freedom. MUNY, (the MTA Music Under New York program) which I am a part of and respect those who run it greatly, is one way to try to ‘sanction’ art under New York and give artists one more ‘buffer’ from the NYPD. But what most people don’t know is that performing under the MUNY banner as well as free lancing on the platforms and/or mezzanines are both legal. The NYPD even has this blue pamphlet,  http://web.mta.info/nyct/rules/rules.htm The MTA Rules and Regulations – that says performing and accepting donations is allowed. I know the rules, no amplification, stay clear of Station Manager’s booths and so on but most times, to be honest, the cops completely ignore the existence of their own rules in lieu of the orders they’ve been given. So my question is, why write them? And why, as buskers do we work to adhere to them if the NYPD is continuing to break their own rules left and right. When approached by a cop or cops I usually ask them, what about the rules? It says in your rules that I’m completely legal in performing here. And normally they respond with: ‘What rules?’ or ‘Oh yeah, we’ve heard about those rules. We don’t care about the rules’ and they then proceed to haul me upstairs, the first question they ask as they pull out their ticket pad being: ‘Are there any warrants out for your arrest?’

Let me say however, I’ve observed that for the most part the cops don’t want to carry out these instructions and they tell me over and over how they hate to ticket and arrest us. There is the rare bird in blue that is “out for blood” but for the most part they know the tickets and arrests are illegal and unfounded and they carry out their orders with hesitation and a whole lot of “caveats” as to why they have to do this. Basically it boils down to them keeping their jobs at our expense and I think I’ll leave it at that.

Do you fight the tickets?

I do. Yes. Because they are illegal. But every time I do I have to take a day or two out of my life to go to court. It’s two days for four to six hours each time. It’s a lot of time and stress and for the New York Taxpayer, a huge waste of your money and manpower in my humble opinion.

This sounds messed up what they’re doing to you all in the Subways

It’s heartbreaking to me. This has been my world. It’s been my family for the entire time I’ve been in New York City. They are disbanding my family, my life, my community. All we do is make music and make people happy. We don’t go down there to beg for money. We go down there to exchange energy, to attempt to change how someone feels for a brief moment, maybe three minutes, maybe fifteen if they hang around for a few tunes. Anyone who is successful down there knows that.

It’s a self-contained world under New York. Many of these guys I only see when I’m underground busking. They don’t have cell phones, don’t have a computer. It’s kind of like a treasure hunt if you want to find someone underground, but when you see them, it’s so magical, it’s like a homecoming and you inevitably have so much to catch up on in between tunes. Now I have no idea where anyone is. Everyone I’ve known for over a decade, everyone I wrote about in my book – they’ve been scattered by Bratton and his army. I feel passionate about doing everything I can to protect this small enclave of artists and this crazy magical world under New York. We, when left to our own devices, on a daily basis turn the grey, dark NYC subways into: a concert hall, a disco, a party, even a wonderland for so many, young and old, who did not expect to be moved while traveling from point A to point B. It’s the very best of the unexpected and what would life be if ….if everything were not…pre-determined, pre-approved.

Why do you think they are targeting the artists under New York? 

We are a really unique community down there underneath New York City. And like many others who have chosen to move more and more of their existence “off grid,” non-participation seems to be the key trigger point in becoming a target. I’ve been down here for ten years, and have watched, during this recession and the last one, as everything above ground was falling apart, we, underground, remained un-phased.

We under New York exist without any laws, no law enforcement, guns, kings, queens, no hierarchy, no one is in charge, no one is at the top or the bottom. There are no rules written down for us to learn or memorize. There is no “training” or “certificate” or test to pass to “be an artist” in the New York City Subways. And despite all the things we don’t do and don’t have that everyone, en masse, appears to have accepted as “givens” of living on planet earth, no one dies, no one gets maimed, no one gets attacked and no one dies. And more than that, it all miraculously just works. There is a “system,” a flow to it all under New York, don’t get me wrong. This flow takes about 1-2 years to learn. It is a pretty intense learning curve, but so is anything worth absorbing in my opinion. And there are really only a few things you learn: how you don’t set up on another performer who is already playing, how to approach a musician to inquire about a spot, where to play and good times to play… etc.  And those few things you absorb as you learn the ropes under New York actually benefit the entire community, all of us. They don’t benefit a ruler, a leader, a head honcho, or a busker with the most money or power  – no, anything, everything you learn under New York allows us all to keep on doing what we all do – make art. You just learn the things that are beneficially useful to all of us, to keep the community functioning. We are a fully functioning working community. We make it work without oversight or participation in “the system” and that right there….that is a huge threat to the status quo. Like home-schoolers, those who raise their own food, collect their own rain water or heal their own illnesses – we don’t contribute to the system of death, destruction and modern day financial slavery. So, yeah, that appears to be a problem and yes we’ve become a target.

What about the subway acrobats? It seems like Bratton has a particular hatred for them.

Bratton’s argument is that this is dangerous. But I’ll remind people here in NY that not one person has ever been maimed or killed by a street performer, at least that I know of, and how many random killings and beatings do the NYPD inflict upon innocent New Yorkers every day?

In London the Police Chief has been quoted as saying that street performing is a “gateway to bigger crimes”, and I don’t know if that’s how Bratton feels, but given his reignited “Broken Windows” campaign, where he’s actively targeting smaller crimes to stop the larger ones from happening, I’d venture to say those two are on exactly the same page where buskers are concerned. They both appear to consider buskers as criminals, and they are both wrong about that. Busking is not a crime.

And with these kids and their dancing, let me be really clear here; Bratton is not saving them from a life of crime – he is pushing them right into it. These kids, the dancers, are smart and bold. They are innovative, creative and well-rehearsed. They have taken initiative and through hours of practice and hard work have created a self-run business for themselves where they’re making good money and they’re their own boss. They make really good money on those trains, I see them counting it after their shifts, which, by the way, is a strong indication that there is actually a need for the entertainment they provide. If there was not, they would not make any money and their efforts would be self-limiting. But the opposite is the case – they are highly successful which can only mean people, on average, enjoy the shows. And trust me, Bratton, you take away the job these guys have created and they will not do an about face and go work at a McDonald’s. You take away their business of dancing, of making art and being their own boss and the only other option they have where they can a) work for themselves and b) make that kind of money is dealing drugs.