Memory of Oppression: Thomkins Square Riot 1988

Written by Holly Troy, NYC
4/8/2006 11:20 AM
[The Tomkins Square Riot as much as any other instance solidified my understanding of the world and my place in it. It highlighted how low income people were treated in the economy, and that we the people are still important.]

Randarian!

I remember the Thomkins Square Riot. I was a squatter then, living on 8th Street and Avenue C. I worked at Life Cafe, so many anarchists and artists and film makers gathered there then. Afterwards, the place was buzzing with talk--so many stories.

It was a hot hot summer. We watched the police line up, there were so many of them. Avenue B. Helmets and clubs--a sea of them. The police no longer looked human. It was hard to believe what would come next though. For a moment the air was filled with silence, and then, just horror.

It was strange, I saw so may people being hurt. PEople just trying to get home. I remember one woman pushing her baby in a stroller just trying to get home. They grabbed her away from the stroller and just started beating her while her baby sat there. Another friend, MAura, was just walking down Avenue A on her way to work. She was a bartender. The cops grabbed her and rubbed her face against the bricks of a building until her cheek was a gaping hole. She was so frightened, she hid in her apt. for days.

All of this violence going on and it was as if I was in a protective bubble, just floating through it all. I was very upset, but for some reason, in the middle of it all, I was untouched. I even spoke to the police while it was happening, and they spoke to me. We conversed calmly.

There was so much tension building up to the riot. And it got worse after the riot.

I felt so heartbroken after that night. Two weeks later I left New York, just went back home. I was 17.