Book Review: Beach Beneath the Streets: Contesting New York City’s Public Spaces by Benjamin Shepard and Greg Smithsimon

Abstract

Beach Beneath the Streets: Contesting New York City's Public Spaces by Benjamin Shepard and Greg Smithsimon. State University of New York Press 2011. Pp. 246. $29.95 (Paperback). ISBN: 1438436203[Article copies available for a fee from The Transformative Studies Institute. E-mail address: journal@transformativestudies.org Website: http://www.transformativestudies.org ©2012 by The Transformative Studies Institute. All rights reserved.]I was supposed to review Ben Shepard and Greg Smithsimon' s Beach Beneath the Streets back in August. I can be thankful for delays as the events of Occupy Wall Street have caused me to completely rewrite this review. The timing for this book could not have been better as it provides a comprehensive history of the struggle for first amendment and economic rights in New York City over the past 50 years.This book is divided into two parts. The first, by Greg Smithsimon, describes the private takeover of public space through various zoning provisions negotiated between developers and the New York City government, often without the input of the local community. Smithsimon gives a general history of how government and private interests parceled out the use of public and private space. Shepard, in the second part, focuses on the practical uses ofthat space and the history of the advocate for public space who strove against a hostile government and private sector in the late 20* and early 21st century. This organization allows the reader to become grounded both in the technical aspects of space usage in Part I as well as the human narratives of advocacy in PartThe authors stress that accessible public space is vital for the basic function of society and imperative for a true democracy to function. The use of public space forms the basis for basic social discourse, from family picnics to political gatherings to the creation of safe havens such as community gardens. But the amount of open, truly public space has been shrinking dramatically as parcels of land are set aside for private uses, often over the objection of the community affected by such land grabs.Smithsimon focuses on the development of the private plazas which are public spaces in name but are maintained and controlled by private entities. While zoning agreements mandated that these private plazas be open to the public, these plazas were designed to limit access. He uses taxonomy to describe the careful planning in which corporations nominally must allow the public access, but which, through careful architectural planning, employ designs that attempt to keep the public out of these very spaces. He categories these spaces asSuburban - access is limited based on the exclusiveness of the areaFiltered -the space is designed only for certain activities such as a shopping mallPrivatized - from which, through architectural design, the public is kept at bayFor those who are homeless, public space allows those who are expelled from mainstream society (such queer youth) to band together, creating their own societal and familial bonds while living in the streets. Both authors stress how private infringement of public space has marginalized and criminalized those who have made the streets their homes. They also note how government-private cooperation in the form of park partnerships and the like have been used to quash the basic freedom of assembly as private entities forbid activities like protests in their space. Shepard points out the example of the ban on the use of Central Park for a large permitted protest during the Republican National Convention in 2004. In enacting this ban, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg put the interests of philanthropists who donated to the Central Park Conservancy over basic first amendment rights.Smithimon's and Shepard' s theories have been put to the test since September 17 when the Wall Street Occupiers, having been expelled from the public Bowling Green park by the NYPD, took the corporate notion of privately owned public space and turned it on its head by occupying Zucotti Park (formerly Liberty Plaza and re-named as such by Occupy Wall Street). …