MAPACA

Mid-Atlantic Popular &
American Culture Association

Study #3 in the Panel Negotiating the Use of New York City’s Shared Public Spaces

New York is one of the most diverse and densely populated cities in the world, and the diversity of this community and its concentration in such a small area determine how New Yorkers view space. Space is not an easily obtained commodity in New York: there is so little of it that New Yorkers must adapt to living, working, and moving in small spaces. The public space creates an opportunity for very different kinds of people to meet and interact. Street performers use the limited public spaces and open forums to broadcast their music to an audience that would otherwise be unable to hear them.

While subway performers are both regulated and supported by the Metropolitan Transport Authority, the city parks have no such program, leaving performers to negotiate their spots among themselves. In this study we examine how performers use New York City parks: how they choose their performance space, how they interact with one another, how they negotiate public space among themselves. The principal student researchers interviewed 8 street musicians from Washington Square Park, supplemented by 37 interviews conducted by their classmates to investigate these questions. They found that the rule of first come, first served may not be as simple as it seems.