The new mayor must open up City Hall

Whether he excites you or enriches you, the prospect of Democratic Socialist Zohran Mamdani becoming the 111st mayor of the city would open the door to the transformation of our political landscape. And this transformation should start with a mayor Mamdani demolish the most important symbolic barrier separating the government from the city of the public: the fence, the doors and the police perimeter Rudy Giuliani installed to whisper the town hall and transform it into a fortress.

Those in New York in the 1990s can remember the area in front of the Town Hall as a dynamic public square. Energy by the reorganization of the government of the city of 1989 which widened and autonomous the municipal council, the place and the marches were a home of civic engagement.

There were easy interactions with the city officials who entered and left the building; rallies, leaflets, other types of protest; And people hang out. Everyone could freely enter the Broadway area to the west, Parker Row in the East and the Park of the South Town Hall. As a young lawyer at the New York Civil Liberties Union, I was often there.

Of course, there was security, with construction entries dressed by NYPD officers and equipped with metal detectors. But that left the stages and Plaza free of the public and did it without problem.

This freedom ended as Giuliani faced withered criticism in the late 1990s for his heavy town hall, and I was involved centralized in the fight against repression. He started in July 1998 when the city refused a request from Housing Works, an eminent AIDS Advocation organization which severely criticizes the administration of Giuliani, to hold a press conference on the markets of the town hall with more than 25 people, a limit that the affirmed NYPD was in force for all the events on the stages.

This assertion could not be on the square with the history of NYPD to authorize much more important events, including an event in May 1998 honoring a launcher of the Yankees. And the assertion of the ministry, the limit of 25 people was necessary to avoid blocking the entrance to the building was absurd given the broad extent of the steps.

We continued, underlined the history of greater events and provided the federal judge photos of the steps of 25 people to the federal judge. He had no trouble rejecting the city’s statements, and housing work had his press conference to announce a report denouncing Giuliani’s failure to provide essential aid services.

The following month, Giuliani used the bombing of two American embassies in Africa as an excuse to close the stages and the place of all events, to ban the public in the region and to install concrete barriers around the perimeter. Fraud in his invocation of terrorism on another continent was revealed when Giuliani organized a October rally on the steps and on the place for 5,000 people to celebrate the Yankees who won the World Series.

Housing work then requested authorization from a rally with no more than 50 people on the stages to commemorate World AIDS Day on December 1. Notwithstanding the gathering of Yankees, the NYPD denied demand, saying that the housing work event would present unacceptable risks. We have continued again and we won again. Perfectly reflecting the Giuliani bunker mentality, the NYPD had a huge presence, including elite shooters on the town hall roof.

After this second cycle of dispute, the city agreed to allow rallies of up to 300 people on the steps or on the square, and this diet has been in place for 25 years. But it never reopened the area to the public. Instead, concrete barriers have become iron fences, with police and entrance doors to Broadway and Park Row, then interior police detector control points before you go to the square or the steps.

Those who participate in rallies must navigate in this glove, and these rallies take place without public. Public members do not have access to the region unless they have business in the town hall and do not look at iron fences, locked doors and armed cops.

This assault against democracy must end, and it’s time. The protection of government representatives inside the town hall can be easily accomplished because it had been with appropriate security at the building’s entrances. But there is no legitimate reason to lock the public in the square in front of the building.

The Mamdani campaign has boosted the people of the government’s promise, and restoring the area in front of the town hall as a civic space would be a powerful way to honor this promise.

Dunn is the former legal director of the New York Civil Liberties Union.