Check Out Last Night's Retro Riot Reenactment In Tompkins Square Park
21 photos
A bonfire burned for hours.<br/>
According to bystanders who recalled the 1988 riot, this was a historically accurate banner.<br/>
An actor in retro police gear pauses to check his cell phone after a scene.<br/>
The production went so far as to provide cans of period era Jolt cola as props.<br/>
A stunt bicyclist is knocked to the ground by police in the melee.<br/>
Neighborhood residents and denizens spent the night working as extras, giving the finger and throwing cans at actors in riot gear.<br/>
A fog machine lent an eerie mood and thick humidity to the park, perhaps helping to approximate the late summer, during which the riot actually took place.<br/>
Mayor Ed Koch was summoned as one of the greedy specters of the era.<br/>
An actor in riot gear stands near a collection of candles and bottles which are presumably Molotov Cocktails, although more than one passerby yelled that they should be bottles of urine, for accuracy's sake.<br/>
The 12th precinct, which ceased to operate in 1916, is frequently used for TV and films featuring NYPD; the 30th is in Harlem.<br/>
These cops did not mind sitting in the back of the police cruiser.
Two of the principal characters, one of whom is pregnant and nearly trampled in the riot.<br/>
'Money for Housing Not for the Pentagon' did not ring any bells as a slogan of the Tompkins Square Park riots for those who could recall them.<br/>
Not the most common symbol for squatting, particularly in New York; there is typically no plus sign appended to it. Head wounds on protestors, however, are 100% historically accurate.<br/>