EXCERPT: WHERE CAN WE BE? THE OCCUPATION OF 123 DELANCEY STREET

Photo: Christof Kohlhofer



Places Journal, excerpted from A Beautiful Ruin: The Generation that Transformed New York, Aug. 2015.


"The week before New Year’s, the artists had put their own lock on the door. Boat-sized GMs, Fords, and Chryslers sped down Delancey Street onto the Williamsburg Bridge. Tom Otterness stood on the corner of Essex Street, watching for police. Halfway down the block, Alan Moore and Peter Moennig huddled at the doorstep of a vacant furniture showroom. Moore took the firefighter boltcutters from Becky Howland’s guitar case, clasped the metal ring of the padlock, tightened his grip, and leaned forward, squeezing the long steel handles."