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LEAVE UNION SQUARE VENDORS ALONE

city_law_nyls_logo_nyreblog_com_.jpgThe following commentary written by Ross Sandler is from the May/June 2010 issue of CityLaw.

Union Square is NOT for Bucolic Contemplation

The Parks Department should rethink its proposal to limit to eighteen the number of expressive vendors in Union Square. The proposal defies the history and design of Union Square, and, if adopted, will diminish the current glory of the Square.

Historically Union Square has been a gathering place for radicals, sidewalk speakers, May Day celebrations, memorials, vigils, protests, parades and vendors. Today the Square is more commercial hub than park. Union Square boasts the largest farmers market in the City which occupies about one third of the Square four days a week. Parks designed the perimeter to accommodate farmer's trucks, tents and booths. Parks even narrowed Union Square West to provide more vending space. This is the especially-designed-for-vending-space that expressive vendors take over when the farmer's market has the day off.

The southern part of the Park is a vast, sweeping stage for all kinds of activity, none of it expected to be contemplative. Visitors are more likely to contemplate mimes, jugglers, clowns, animals for adoption and political vigils over events in Tibet. In November and December Parks actually rents out the entire space to an upscale Christmas market. Parks stated in its proposal that this area was designed as a "Spanish Steps" to allow visitors to sit and congregate. They do, and what they like is the commercial and expressive hubbub of the area.

Parks must feel a bit hypocritical about its proposal. Last year Parks successfully defended in court its decision to install a commercial restaurant in Union Square's pavilion. Parks justified that use as a traditionally commercial area. So is vending, and vending is much more democratic and open than a private restaurant.

Union Square is a destination precisely because it is an urban stage, not a bucolic setting. That is why Union Square so perfectly served as a spontaneous memorial after 9-11. The City needs such sites, and these special sites cannot be dictated; they emerge out of history and common usage. Parks should honor that special character by encouraging expressive vending, rather than proposing to force out of Union Square the very activities that make the Square so glorious and unique.

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