Asymmetrical Information

From the desk of Jane Galt:

I am now less inclined to think that the parks department's refusal of permits for Anti-Republican rallies during the convention were viewpoint oriented, thanks to this New York Times article, which points out that the policy of not allowing groups llarger than 100,000 has been in place since 1997. Moreover, a Dave Matthews concert which drew a mere 80,000 in 2003 (against a projected 250,000 for the big rally) cost the parks service $120,000 in damage. As a New York City taxpayer, this makes me eager indeed to restrain the number of people allowed to tramp on the Great Lawn. Unless the Parks Service charged admission--say, $10 a head--in which case, hey, protest to your heart's content.

The actual subject of the article is the Parks department's new move to cut the size of crowds to 50,000, and allow only six a year, four of which will go to performances of the opera and the Philharmonic. The activists who organised the rally try to portray this as targeted at keeping them from holding future rallies, an argument which is undercut by the fact that the Parks department is apparently letting them protest away on unrestored sections of the park. They complain that there are few wide open spaces in New York City in which to protest, which is true, but that doesn't make it some sort of civil right to tear up the grass; you have a right to peacably assemble, not a right to hold your demonstrations in scenic & enjoyable locations. The Great Lawn is a public accomodation, and as such, competing interests have to be weighed. Protesting is a highly secondary purpose to the everyday function of the Great Lawn, which is to allow people to sit on a nice piece of grass that doesn't have to be fenced off and re-sodded every few years.

The Parks Service are totalitarian in defense of the grass, and it can be annoying, particularly to those of us with dogs who find 99% of Riverside Park's greenery has been fenced off for the sole enjoyment of the squirrels. I am well prepared to concede that they may go too far in their desire to defend their little patches o' emerald. But, remembering what the parks were like before the Parks Department became hypervigilant (ever seen pictures of the Dust Bowl?), I also realize that there are just too many people in this city, with too many competing desires, for them to allow everyone the unfettered access they long for. They are not targeting us because they hate dogs, or protest groups, but because they hate the site of raw brown fields where grass used to grow.

Posted by Jane Galt at April 27, 2005 10:31 AM | TrackBack | Technorati inbound links