Jillian Riley
Entrapment: 
Public Space, from Use to Abuse
 

Today I walked through the square on the South Street Seaport, one of my favorite spots in New York. I watched as workers assembled a large synthetic tree in the middle of the main entrance to the square. It reminded me of the reason I love the square: it is an escape, a place I go when I don’t want to think about my work or about problems. I look out at the water and return to simpler times. So many times we hear ourselves saying, “I just need to get away from it all.” We feel the need to escape our lives, to take vacations, to have no worries. It is no wonder considering America’s obsession with getting it all done: the job, the family, the social life. We are exhausted with heavy issues by the evening news and the papers. There is too much work to be done. We need an escape. Perhaps no peoples feel this burden more than New Yorkers. Between rushing across the street trying to beat the flashing          and making it through the Starbucks line and to a destination of choice by nine AM, we’re exhausted. How do we do it? We cannot live in a world of stress twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. In response, we build into our society pockets of escape, places where we can go to feel that there is not a care in the world. For a moment, the flashing          is gone, and the corporate coffee drinkers don’t exist. We build a place where we can forget about the other places. A prime example of this is the cobblestone area by the South Street Seaport. When you step onto the square, you feel as though you have been swept back to a time of no worries. The nostalgia takes over, and only the aroma of chocolate and the pleasant chill in the air meet your senses. At first glance, that is. Then you look the left and see Abercrombie and Fitch, and, to the right is the Gap. Though, Abercrombie was established in 1892, the half-naked (and assuredly anorexic) models in the window remind us that it is over one hundred years later.  Suddenly, it all feels fake. The chocolate, the lamps, the cobblestone. Are they merely warming my heart to open my pocket book? I’ve been through this sort of manipulation before; after all, it is America, centered around money. Furthermore, it is New York, a city where people will sink so low as to sell memorabilia from September 11, attempting to profit from the largest tragedy in our nation’s history. Macy’s turns down the temperature to get you to buy another sweater, but that is different: we sign a contract when we walk through the winter wonderland decorated doors. We walk onto private space; we subject ourselves to manipulation. Does public space now subject us to this same sort of manipulation as well? Should we watch our every move, so as not to allow our subconscious to be controlled by visceral pleasure? We enjoy the pier for providing an escape from the other parts of Manhattan. After all, in very few other places can cobblestone streets be found. I know of one- the French Quarter near Washington Square Park, but a large sign sits outside the alley alerting New Yorkers that this is not public space; only residents are allowed in this section. Perhaps allowing ourselves to be manipulated is the price we pay for use of public space. This can be seen in various sites throughout the city. For example, government officials claim that City Hall Park is built for us, the people of New York, for our enjoyment. How generous. But the three million dollars of our tax money used to build and maintain the park was used for, among other aspects, an icon on the ground of the entranceway glamorizing New York’s history. Sure, in this case, the public space is not asking for any money from us, but, rather, it asks us to buy into an idea. The builders of the public space ask us to see how spectacular New York, how spectacular the city counsel is, though they have blocked off the actual steps to City Hall.  The builders of City Hall Park are New York City officials, while those who maintain the upkeep of the South Street Seaport are store-owners. Thus, they ask different things of us (they manipulate us in different ways.) City Hall Park’s builders ask that we revere the government and identity of New York; the square’s builders ask that we make purchases. And so, we enjoy City Hall Park, but not without a price. We enjoy the square at Pier 17, but not without a price. We no longer take advantage of public space. Public space takes advantage of us. There is no escape from the grip a city holds on its inhabitants.  There is a quiet struggle going on in Manhattan, the struggle between the controlled and the controllers, those who sell the clothes and those who buy them, those who build the space and those who inhabit it. It is everywhere and yet we do not see it. Ngugi Wa Thiong’o, in his “Enactments of Power: The Politics of Performance Space,” discusses the conflict between art and those who allow it to inhabit certain performance spaces. Identifying a different conflict than the one I am discussing, Thiong’o makes the broad and accurate observation that, “The conflict in the enactments of power is sharper where the state is externally imposed, a situation of the conqueror and the conquered for instance, as in colonialism” (Thiong’o 461). Essentially, Thiong’o argues that conflict is more easily exposed when there is an obvious victim and an obvious conqueror. This then exposes why we do not recognize the conflict that exists in the control of public space: we are getting something out of it. Sure, I generally end up buying something when I am wandering about the square, as do half of tourists, but I am enjoying my time there. I will add to Abercrombie’s daily sales if it will add to my visceral pleasure, if it will aid in my escape. We have a codependent relationship. When I walk onto City Hall Park, I will buy into the glorifying of Manhattan because I am enjoying my time basking in the sun on the bench of my choice.  Essentially, we get lazy. We allow ourselves to be taken advantage of. We allow the City Counsel to make us believe in the glorification of New York, and we allow the South Street Seaport to make us believe that buying scarves will make us happier people. As Stephanie Farqhuar states in her “Memoirs of the City’s Unfamous,” “We know that it cannot be ours and that cannot be changed.” (Farqhuar 47) Farqhuar asserts that parts of New York City, such as Gramercy Park, are wrongly reserved for the wealthy elite. She wants to have access to all of these supposedly public spaces. I want this access too. I will take it a step further, though. I will assert that I deserve to spend time in these public spaces without having my mind controlled by those who claim stake near the public space. We are constantly bombarded with manipulative images- in commercials, in politicians, in magazines, in movies. Now, we literally have to worry about the subconscious messages being sent to us from the very ground upon which we walk. We have been alerted to watch out for subliminal messages in the media, and we know that politicians lie, but are we prepared to deal with political jargon and advertising campaigns when we don’t see them coming? Certainly one could argue that those who have built the public space have the right to offer certain images in an effort to gain a response from the space’s inhabitants. After all, I’m sure that Abercrombie and Fitch and The Gap and Godiva all paid for part of the Christmas tree I saw going up today. We can get into technical legalities; after all, no one in these cases is, in fact, breaking the law. However, our nation is a democracy, and nowhere is this represented more fully than in Manhattan, where civil liberties and diversity are celebrated more than any other city in the world. Ultimately, the principles underlying these civil liberties and the freedom that allows the creation of such a diverse community are in place to be questioned. Rosalyn Deutsche poses a similar question in her “Art and the Public Space: Questions of Democracy.” Deutsche offers,    . . . if we try to obliterate the question in the heart of democracy and fail to think of democracy as a social practic e challenging the omnipotence of power through the extension of specific rights, discourses of democracy can also be successfully mobilized to compel acquiescence in new forms of subordination (Deutsche 442).  Deutsche is discussing the all too democratic manner in which art is selected for public space. While I am discussing a lack of democracy in public space, Deutsche’s theory on democratic principle rings true. Democracy is a living, breathing idea, not a stagnant body of rules. Else, there would be no reason for the provision for revision of laws. The bottom line of democracy is that it places the power in the hands of the people. In a sense, we govern ourselves. This is the supposed atmosphere of our country, and yet we see few controlling many in so many situations. Such is the case in the abuse of public space. Granted, the ideals of democracy have certainly been twisted in recent history, but now this breaching of civil liberties has gone so far as to extend into our public space. We now face a society in which subliminal messaging is being sent to us through a Christmas tree. For a while, we were only susceptible to stores getting us to buy their merchandise when we turned on the television or looked into their windows. Now, even public space, such as the square, is dominated by the stores, giving it a certain image to make you buy more. We can no longer step out of our homes without being bombarded by subliminal messaging. Give me a document to which I can go for the actual news; give me a politician who will actually tell me the truth; give me a place where I can escape without anyone trying to control my thoughts or feelings. Give me an actual democracy. Give me truly public space.     Works Cited Thiong’o, Ngugi Wa. “Enactments of Power: The Politics of Performance.” Writing The Essay, Art and the World, The World Through Art. Ed. Darlene A. Forrest, Randy Martin, Pat C. Hoy II. New York: 2003. 460-492.  Farqhuar, Stephanie. “Memoirs of the City’s Unfamous.” Mercer Street. Ed. Pat C. Hoy II and Darlene A. Forrest. New York: 2003. Deutsche, Rosalyn. “Art and Public Space: Questions of Democracy.” Writing the Essay, Art and the World, The World Through Art. Ed. Darlene A. Forrest, Randy Martin, Pat C. Hoy II. New York: 2003. 460-492.       (c)Jillian Riley 2004

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