Tompkins Square Park
On August 6, 1988, Lower East Side residents united to protest New York City's attempt to impose a one a.m. curfew in Tompkins Square Park, a move that would have effectively displaced the many homeless living in there. Demonstrators clashed with riot-gear clad police, and the ensuing violence set to boiling a neighborhood already seething with drugs, poverty and social unrest. In Tompkins Square Park, photographer Q. Sakamaki collects many of the photographs he took at the time—they are raw, gritty and entirely involved, and present a valuable history lesson for anyone who's ever bar-hopped their way down Avenue A.
