What time is it? (Photo by flickr user Dan Nguyen)
As straphangers filed onto my Q train at Canal St. on Monday night, I let out an inward sighed. A “Showtime!” crew in full regalia with musical accompaniment boarded my train. They announced their routine, and before legs and hats and arms could go flying, they stopped. The big guy standing near the door seemed like an undercover cop and nearly confirmed as much. The troupe decided against risking it, sat out the ride across the Manhattan Bridge and quietly switched cars.
Now, watching a Showtime crew give up isn’t a new experience. Sometimes, they board a train at rush hour that’s too crowed for the routine; sometimes, riders simply will not move over to clear enough space. Before starting a fight, they wait and move on at the next stop. (They target the Q, of course, because the bench seating on the new rolling stock leads to wide aisles.) Still, I had never seen kids stop in their tracks due to the potential presence of a plain-clothes officer.
Lately, under Commission Bill Bratton so-called quality-of-life crimes have come under police scrutiny, and as The Times detailed yesterday, subway acrobats have been on the receiving end of an NYPD crackdown. As no fan of Showtime!, I initially applauded the move, but the more I read about it, the less I’m sure it’s the way to go. Here’s how Matt Flegenheimer, soon to be off the transit beat, and J. David Goodman put it:
Cheered by tourists, tolerated by regulars, feared by those who frown upon kicks in the face, subway dancers have unwittingly found themselves a top priority for the New York Police Department — a curious collision of a Giuliani-era policing approach, a Bloomberg-age dance craze and a new administration that has cast the mostly school-age entertainers as fresh-face avatars of urban disorder.
Arrests of performers have more than quadrupled this year, to 203 through early this month, compared with 48 over the same period last year…The attention is part of a broader policing strategy in which officers, who often act on complaints from the public, place an emphasis on low-level offenses with a goal of rooting out more serious crime…
Once emblematic of urban disorder, the subways have been a focus of renewed efforts, drawing significant resources for what Deputy Inspector Edward O’Brien called “a cat-and-mouse game.” Teams of officers, dressed casually, follow tips from riders or transit personnel and fan out across cars. “They know we’re out there,” said Inspector O’Brien, who heads special operations for the Police Department’s transit bureau and who was on the train in plainclothes when other officers moved in to arrest Peppermint and Butterscotch. “They’re stepping up their game to a certain degree.”
The Times notes thats around 20 percent of subway dancers have outstanding warrants while others face charges of reckless endangerment or disorderly conduct. Even that seems on the excessive side of things. I’ve objected to the Showtime! routine on the grounds that they’re loud and disruptive with the potential for an errant foot to meet an unsuspecting head. They’re nothing though that probably can’t be solved by ejecting the kids from the system and giving them a warning or a summons.
Any charges simply seem to be rubbing it and unnecessary for any future records, but maybe I’m being too lenient. After all, the kids keep coming back, and enough people keep donating to make the whole thing worthwhile. So let me throw it open to you by revisiting a poll from earlier this year. What do you think of Showtime?
78 comments
How about nothing?
A $75 summons is just the cost of doing business. It will not deter the practice. A possible prison record might. If you take a bus down Second Avenue in Manhattan during rush hour you will every day find the bus lane blocked by Coca Cola delivery trucks, why, because the fine is just the cost of doing business.
These performers are not in the sort of “business” that takes fines and arrests and court appearances in stride. There’s something to be said for the gritty artistic enterprise of these kids but sorry to say (ok, not sorry)… a subway train is not the place.
Yes, a prison record sounds like a great idea for a totally non-violent offense. Let’s take them from tough to employ to just about impossible to employ. And then wonder why we need to call the police again when they resort to antisocial behavior.
The boneheadedness of police state habitués is just baffling sometimes.
I think they should get help with employment with jobs that won’t get them into trouble, like an easy flippin burgers jobs or stacking books at the library. Also more programs to assist people in getting a GED or high school diploma could work.
But wouldn’t that negatively impact corporate profits by hiering new workers & paying for their healthcare?
I thaught we were a neoliberal society that values corporate profits & privatisation at the expense of everything else.
Sarcasm alert
Fine by me, and, sure, many people will take those kinds of jobs over busking and hustling probably because, ultimately, any wage labor usually pays more.
But people busk and hustle for a reason. There is only so much low-wage unskilled stuff to do too. Reflexively wanting to call the police because of that is just kinda shitty.
Because subway riders deserve to be able to ride in peace, without having to worry about getting kicked in the face.
I could see a place for breakdancing in above-ground plazas taken from traffic sewers. Broadway from 42nd to 35th gave up two or three lanes to chairs, tables, and planters. Why not set aside a few spots along here for these dance groups?
Now the police boldly send them away, or bust them, while tourists wonder, “Why not let them dance for us?”
Just re-do the seating inside all the cars to resemble the BMT Standards — Yes, it would be horrifically ADA non-compliant, but after one round of banging their legs and arms against the edges of the wicker seats or the porcelain poles, that would pretty much curtail the desire to put on any “Showtime” performances.
Suddenly people are tripping over anything and everything, then complain that the layout is worse. It’s not worth it.
*Complaining…
Quality of life offenses? How about being able to cross the street without being killed? That seems like an important part of quality of life to me.
Meanwhile, the NYPD continues to treat the manslaughter of pedestrians by motorists with the statement “No criminality suspected”.
http://www.streetsblog.org/201.....ath-beach/
http://www.streetsblog.org/cat.....s/carnage/
As long as the police lets reckless killers like these go free, they have no justification for shutting down “Showtime”. They simply don’t have the moral standing.
You can make this argument for any offense that is less serious than another offense: “Why are you arresting me for robbery/embezzlement/assault? Don’t you have some murders to solve?” The NYPD doesn’t ignore traffic deaths because of a lack of resources. It just has different (and, I think we would agree, misguided) priorities. Just consider the three dozen detectives sent to try to solve the mystery of the white flag over the Brooklyn Bridge. Making a few well publicized arrests of Showtime gangs can make a lot of people a lot more comfortable (and safe) in their daily commutes. I, for one, want to encourage this.
“It just has different (and, I think we would agree, misguided) priorities. ”
Kind of my point, really. Every government agency needs to have sensible priorities, but the police need it more than most. When they have terrible priorities, they lose legitimacy.
Or maybe one or two people per subway car could light up a cigarette. Obviously, much less of an infraction than vehicular manslaughter, so we can just let it slide.
I still support ejecting “Showtime” performers from the subway. But seriously, undercover agents and arrests? Terrible sense of priorities.
Are you familiar with the principle of “calculus of negligence”? Note that we don’t talk about turning cigarette smoking on the subway into a major criminal offense. AFAIK, it’s still a civil infraction. (Drinking certainly is. Maybe the added risk of fire on the subway changes things? But I don’t think so.)
We only talk about turning Showtime into a criminal offense because poor/brown males are doing it. If it were the prep school set, at most we’d be talking about fines or calling their daddies. You can even bet some of the same authoritarians calling for prosecutions would probably be praising their entrepreneurship.
“We only talk about turning Showtime into a criminal offense because poor/brown males are doing it. If it were the prep school set, at most we’d be talking about fines or calling their daddies. You can even bet some of the same authoritarians calling for prosecutions would probably be praising their entrepreneurship.”
There’s an old Eddie Murphy SNL skit where he goes around disguised as a white person and finds that among whites society is one huge party with no rules and strictures. That was satire.
But art in it’s various forms is a form of social commentary. Bolwerk’s point is completely valid. In fact if you have sene the new Lifetime drama series “The Lottery”, you’ll see bolwerk’s points illastrated almost perfectly http://www.myliftime.com. And this show deals with something far more serious than showtime!
Eddie Murphy’s satire was aimed, I think, at people who thought that if only they were white, items would be free, loans wouldn’t have to be paid back, etc… that usual rules are some sort of conspiracy aimed at non-whites. The idea that white people are completely accepting of incivility, so long as its being perpetrated by other white people, is a fantasy.
I just watched it. It might make light of black attitudes a bit, but the satire seems squarely aimed at pointing out what it’s like to live in a society where everyone assumes you are some dangerous “other.”
Note how, at the end, it has a group of blacks practically taunting the (predominantly white) audience about how suddenly they’re going to be a “normal” part of everyday life that they’re not supposed to experience.
Sorry, BW, but that’s delusional. Wilhelm is an advocate for everything he sees as black/brown/purple; his inauguration speakers said as much. This subway crackdown is completely new and comes from his crew.
The Wonder Bread mayors prior (even Rudy) gave the Showtime folks a free run, possibly because they had a grain of common sense.
I recall a fawning radio series on NPR a few years back lionizing a group of young entrepreneurs. They were not writing a cute phone app, not building a social website, nor a universal, cheap operating system, not even something boring like Dean Kamen’s wearable Rx pump.
The NPR segment was on the entrepreneurship team they, a bunch o rich white folks, considered praiseworthy: an inner city drug distribution ring.
“You can even bet some of the same authoritarians calling for prosecutions would probably be praising their entrepreneurship.”
The series in this example praised the initiative and organization of the drug ring while calling them entrepreneurs.
NPR is the country’s only government sponsored domestic radio network, and thus the only one with a credible connection to legal authority.
Heh, I wouldn’t delude myself into thinking his inauguration speakers particularly give a damn about poor/brown/jobless males themselves. Why is everyone missing those other traits? They’re at least as pertinent as race. My comments were directed at these over-the-top comments praising prosecution, mostly posted here, not BdB.
Now that you mention it, however, De Blasio is proving he might be to the right of Bloomberg on the police state antics. Within weeks of his inauguration an elderly Chinese man was beaten for jaywalking and misunderstanding polizei instructions. That probably set the tone for a lot of the crap that went down since.
Now, he did scale back stop ‘n frisk, to his credit. However, it shouldn’t escape anyone’s notice that he has a hulking teenage son with a dark complexion and the kind of kinky hair that no doubt sets the NYPD’s more egregious meathead’s blackdars into tailspins.
It’s horrific that arrests are even being made for something so trivial. They’re trying to make a little money in a city that’s increasingly making it harder to find even “illegitimate” methods of doing so. Yet another chapter in post-Bloomberg NYC’s campaign against the poorest folks in our city. If you’re not bringing in tourism money or trust-fund-baby gentrifier money, you’re not wanted.
It’s not trivial when you get kicked in the face. That’s assault not a couple of young guys having fun.
There have been enough warnings about this and so anyone who does it from now on deserves everything that they get.
If you don’t want the fine then don’t do the crime !
Forgive me if I’m wrong, but I don’t think it meets a legal definition of assault if there is no intent to harm the other person. You can assault someone without hurting them (e.g., you try to punch them and miss).
What you’re describing is probably called negligent battery or something. It may be criminally negligent.
Young black men doing headstands and spinning their bodies on the sidewalk, while telling jokes and hustling for tips, actually seem to please the tourists enormously. But the cops hassle them just as much. In fact, hassling them off the skyscraper plazas may have forced some of them onto the trains.
In any case, if they are young and black, the cops hate them and want to put them in jail. Same for almost all politicians. Don’t listen to what they say, watch what they do.
Is there a reason you have cops in NYC?
In LA, the rule of thumb is “never, ever call the cops”. And as far as I can tell, this is true in *every* neighborhood, including the mostly-white ones. It’s pretty clear that the cops in LA are so sick and corrupt that the city would be better off dissolving the department entirely.
NYPD doesn’t seem to be quite that bad. Yet. But they were going in that direction very strongly under Ray Kelly.
This is a gross exaggeration. Certainly there are problems within NYPD, or LAPD, but it is not that bad as you try to point it.
Your comment reminds me of a long piece on gentrification published on The Atlantic last year, where one of the complaints about the “newcomers” to Brooklyn was that they were “calling the cops” on things like noise or even shoplifting in “gentrified stores” instead of “working out the issues by having some direct conversation with the offender”.
While this isn’t the worst of problems in NYC, it is still a dangerous action. I’ve seen people come so close to getting flying foot in the face that they looked like they were going to pass out.
A subway car is not the place for acrobatics. A nice hefty fine- $100 or so and DAT to pay it and hear a little hell from a judge would be enough. If someone gets caught a second time, then its time for a little time.
Truth is, the best way this stops is with passengers on the train. When a group decides its showtime, 1) Stand up and take away their space; 2) Stop giving them money at the end. If they stop making any money, they’ll stop flying around the cars.
I agree that these performances are unsafe–but I also think that any amount of jail time for them is not in the best interest of this city or its people. The showtimers are performing for money, so it makes sense to hit them where it hurts instead of making them yet another victim of a system that is slow to apply logic and fast to apply prison sentences. We also shouldn’t force them to declare that they were showtimers to all their future employers.
The game theorist in me says the fine should be calibrated such that the amount a performer makes from showtime is exactly equaled by the value of the fine multiplied by the chance of getting caught. $75 per person passes the sniff test, but a number like $100 could be correct for all I know.
I generally agree – I would say a DAT, $100 fine, and an ACD (adjournment in contemplation of dismissal – stay out of trouble for a year, case goes away) for a first offense. If they get another DAT while the ACD is still open, then go for a Disorderly (which is a violation, seals after a year, and doesn’t give you a criminal record). Third time, add some community service or something.
Jail time is necessary for repeat offenders. For those going off on tangents about cars, I feel the same way about drivers who drive repeatedly without a license or insurance. Society can “work” to some degree with only 80-90% of the people following the rules, but it’s not pleasant for those who are doing what they are supposed to do to have to deal with those who are not.
The real problem comes when the police are the ones not following the rules. Which has been all too well documented in NYC.
“The dirty 30” anyone?
For all those saying that a fine will do, especially if it exceeds the “cost of doing business”, keep in mind that most of the fines handed out on the subways never get paid, and there are very few consequences for not paying these fines. A 16 year old kid is probably not too worried about what damage he might do to his credit record. Handing out just a fine is no greater a deterrent than giving the Showtime crews a serious talking to, i.e., no deterrent at all.
Bingo.
Then let’s fix the problem by giving transit more resources to collect fines. The idea that we should put people into jail because tickets have no teeth makes showtimers the victims of a problem that we’re unwilling to solve.
I don’t see the big deal. It’s a little annoying, but there are lots of little annoyances in the city, and the sum of them all add a lot of the character. I don’t want to make New York feel as anti-septic as Singapore.
Not to mention, the police don’t have anything better to do? Shootings are up this year, maybe we should focus on that.
Agreed on the first part. Its sad to see what people will trade in for the semblance of peace and safety. NYC is not NYC because it is orderly and obsequious.
I grew up in brooklyn and have been watching subway acts (including comedy bits, freestyle rapping/poetry, god-preachers, and the like), and I have never once witnessed anyone ever get hurt physically. Given the scale of how often break dancing happens every day and the paucity of documented injuries that have occurred, its safe to assume the risk of physical injury is very low.
Or, we could use the NY-POST logic: people climb brooklyn bridge and put a white flag on top –what if it had been a nuclear bomb! We need police 24/7 on top of the bridge
Actually, that was the Daily News with its “Hey you kids! Get off my lawn!” curmudgeonly headline grumbling about bombs. The Post did the “Hipsters Surrender!” front page (though for that headline, it would have been more appropriate if the flag had been planted on top of the Willie B instead of the Brooklyn Bridge).
That is awesome. I miss reading the Post!
I actually laughed at the white flag story including the fow outrage & the false asurtions regarding terrorism as any so called news story can be associated with terrorism.
Bratton did essentially the same thing when he was in charge of the TA Police (in that case, with fare jumpers): pick up the minor offenders, run warrants, and arrest those who have outstanding warrants. It isn’t fair to charge the kids who have clean records, but it is an effective way to grab people wanted for something bigger. As the Times notes, some 20% have outstanding warrants when they’re brought in, and I can’t really argue with an effort that brings them in. We could stand to release the others with a fine and avoid the misdemeanor charges, but it would irresponsible not to verify who, if anyone, is wanted in connection with another crime.
Are those outstanding warrants from “crimes” such as a previous showtime incident?
Warrants may be for late child support payments due to unemployment. Or somehow related to smoking the demon weed. Trivial stuff sounds like big stuff when glorified as a “Warrant”! In any case, the point of a “Warrant” is usually to give cops another excuse to put black guys in jail. Don’t fall for it.
Has anyone thaught about deportation? LOL
to Africa?
Nah, Singapore, Tokyo, Toronto or London will do.
How ’bout to Jersey
Connecticut.
Robbins Reef. They can perform for passing tourists on the Staten Island Ferry who can toss coins off the boat…
Thats a hell of a poll.
How about “stop wasting police resources on this.”
I see nothing wrong with someone trying to make a living from entertainment, rather than grabd-and-dash crime
Thats a hell of a poll.
Yeah – especially when you try to dance on it & the train is moving!
The trip across the Manhattan bridge is an important and welcome opportunity to make a quick cellphone call – “Meet me at Kings Highway” or wherever. The Showtime! music and commotion makes these calls nearly impossible – especially if you’re hard of hearing. I have no problem with the “dancing” – its the accompanying sound that I hate.
Co-sign this. But I also think it’s insane that the MTA officially sanctions such loud amplified music performers in the stations where they blast my ear drums out and block pedestrian traffic as well.
I’ll admit my experience of the Showtime dancers is probably different from others’ — I live and work in Manhattan so I don’t regularly travel the cross-river trains they prefer. But the groups I have seen perform have been polite, good-humored and rather talented. I have also never seen them perform on a train that seemed too crowded to safely accommodate their antics. Which is a long way of saying my overall impression is positive.
This seems like a misplaced priority for the NYPD. Kick them off a rush-hour train? Sure. But a group of these kids plying their trade on a quiet Sunday afternoon? Let them be. A fine and/or summons is overkill.
This is part of the fabric of NYC. Lighten up! (Although of course I agree nobody deserves a foot in the face).
Are you one of the “graffiti is art” people? “part of the fabric” is poor excuse for normalization of disorder and lawlessness.
Also same dude would likely respond to illegal club opening in his neighborhood and resulting quality of life degradation to “if you want quiet, move to the suburbs!!” — UNTIL he has a new baby, then he will start showing up at Community Board meetings
Graffiti actually is art; the problem with it is that it’s also vandalism. Of course, trying to use it in a discussion of something else is not the best move because neither the ends nor means have anything in common.
Might be over the top but I think you need to set an example with the arrests. A slap on the wrist wont stop them.
As as I said earlier they have now had enough warnings so anyone who continues deserves what they get.
The poll seems to be missing one or two very important options, such as “Showtime is great; NYPD should leave these performers alone.”
Riders should just move out of the way and let them perform, and then give them money, and then thank them for adding just a mere iota of levity to the banal trudgery that subway riding oft is.
There’s only a risk of getting hit in the head if you stand there without moving like a nitwit.
Where I do move when all the seats are taken, and there are already people standing at let’s say, one end of the car? I’m supposed sacrifice my seat so they can spin around the poles?
Sorry, no. What they are doing is dangerous, and when someone gets seriously hurt it is going to be the MTA and NYPD who will get sued and pay out hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Jail time might be excessive, and fines probably won’t be paid. Then how about having them clean the subway cars, and maybe give them space in some of the larger subway stations to perform– safely.
I think the cops enforce permit requirements for station performances. I agree though, jumping around like a lunatic is much less dangerous and intimidating in a station. If this were confined to stations, it wouldn’t be much of an issue for the riding public.
I agree community service might make sense in lieu of fines when they can’t pay or for repeat offenses. But I think people are really hyping this into a much bigger problem than it is. Every time I have politely refused to move, that ended the discussion. Just like I politely refuse most requests strangers make of me, most of which involve selling something, whether it be a (really terrible) show or candy bars for their basketball team. They aren’t marauding gangsters looking for women to burn and houses to rape. They are kids/young adults trying to make a buck, and I seriously doubt they want the attention that comes from fighting with people who won’t move.
I also concur with Eric though. I don’t see why it can’t be accommodated (or at least tolerated to the extent that it’s not troubling) on a mezzanine, of which there are plenty around the system. If it moves from the platform and subway car, it ceases to be a safety issue.
Why the fuck do people reflexively want to call the police, instead of trying to engage with these people?
Bolwerk,
reread your last post. Rape a house? How do you do that. Burning women? This isn’t Salem!
Sorry, couldn’t resist.
It was deliberate. Hysteria drives people to make stupid mistakes.
OK, I understand now – makes it funnyer than before.
Well I actually enjoy showtime. They know what they are doing, they wouldn’t just recklessly board a train without any skills that could endanger themselves and others
This is a nuisance, not criminality. Even the Grouch here finds cuffing and dragging them into a cruiser, much less a reckless endangerment charge, to be a circus act of excess.
DiBlasio’s attitude towards crime appears unhinged. He has dictated a city giveaway of $40 million to a gang who confessed to and were certainly guilty of numerous assaults, including beating a completely uninvolved pedestrian in a park unconscious with a metal pipe. The jackpot is supposedly because they were convicted of a gang rape on the Central Park Jogger which they probably didn’t do but likely had some part in. For the woman who was beaten nearly to death and will never fully recover, Wilhelm offers … silence. There’s an op-ed in today’s WSJ about this.
Then he wants real criminal charges on kids having fun, making a buck and maybe getting aggressive on the subway.
It would be smarter to scout out the best of the acts, or audition them and set up space in/around the larger stations. Set up poles/fake subway car walls and a smooth floor to do their routine. Doing a flip by running up a wall is something everyone under 30 should aspire to.
Where is Matt Flegenheimer going?
I don’t see the need to make these kids out to be criminals or anything. I’ve seen them on the A (from 125th to 59th), and they seemed really polite. They asked people to make space, and the train wasn’t that crowded. I agree that maybe giving them permits to practice in some mezzanines might be a good solution.
By the way, has anybody actually gotten kicked by these performers?
About taking them to jail. Last I saw estimates, it costs $40 to $50,000 a year to lock up a body in New York. For that money you could create two make-work jobs — one digging holes, another filling them in again — at $20 grand each, before deducting taxes. LOL.
Something like the cost of Riker’s Island could put a big dent in youth unemployment in the City. If the jobs created were useful — playground assistant at the school yard, groundskeeping in the parks and along streets in unfashionable (unfunded) neighborhoods, etc. — it might actually add to the Gross Domestic Product.
When I’m on one of their common routes, I make sure I stand in the middle of the car and refuse to move if they ask me to. Hoping enough other riders will be willing to stand up to these guys. I wouldn’t mind them getting a record/fine, or even a night in jail (nothing further than that is necessary). All this started (for me) the 2nd time they’ve accidentally bumped me with their swinging about; I’m eager to see subway dancing rubbed out.
Fundamentally, I object to people taking public space for their private performances.
When I go to a dance concert, I pay to see performers. When I get on the subway, I don’t want to fight off every god-preacher, dancer, drummer (one of whom admitted that he makes $1000/week tax free), ‘snacks for the team’ seller etc; I just want to read my book and be left alone.
When we allow people to take over public spaces, the very concept of public space loses its meaning — at that point we might as well have Showtime! in the indoor plazas in midtown.
I’ve started blocking them. I immediately, upon seeing their entry, take up the area under the car’s ceiling monkey bars and just say “no” to them. They’re a lot more afraid of you than you are of them and won’t try to push you out of the way to “do their show.” Just say no and take back your subways.