Juggling for dimes? uh-uh!

Last Thursday afternoon, as we've all seen a hundred times before, a juggler was tossing his wares in the fountain at Washington Square Park. It was a cool, sunny, early spring day, and he'd attracted a good-sized crowd. According to archivist and activist Clayton Patterson, what made this performance different from most was that it ended when two Park Enforcement Police officers stopped the juggler and issued him a summons. Why? For performing without a permit and soliciting. That is, for entertaining a bunch of people who were hanging out in the park and passing a hat.

All right, you might be saying, he didn't have the necessary permits, so he got a fine. Big deal. Robert Lederman has been waging a long and bitter battle with the city on behalf of sidewalk artists and street performers. As a result of his lawsuit, he said, performers do not need a permit, either to perform or pass the hat, so long as they aren't using an amplifier. 

Park rules, however, do require a permit for a gathering of more than 20 people. So in other words, according to Park rules, performers are free to perform as long as they aren't very good.

But the real question is: Is this just the next step in the continuing sterilization of Washington Square Park? With the "renovations" designed to make the park more symmetrical for some unknown reason, and the ring of security cameras, and now signs of what may be a threat to performers (or at least their incomes), the future of Washington Square as a famously funky oasis of freedom and expression, the birthplace of The Fugs, a place for hippies and hipsters and punks, beatniks and winos, acrobats, squirrel ladies and the wandering insane may be ending.