Ghosts of Union Square

This project took aim at a public relations campaign produced by The Union Square Partnership, a local Business Improvement District (BID) attempting to privatize the north end of NYC’s Union Square park and install a high-end celebrity chef restaurant. They hosted historical walking tours of the park for decision-makers, as a means of getting buy-in for their development initiative.

The plan’s detractors viewed the BID’s PR-oriented tours as an attempt to co-opt the radical history of a public space. In response, we produced an intervention aimed at highlighting the location’s history. We created an organization called the Community Improvement District and produced historical tours that functioned as an “augmentation” of the BID’s tours. Our tours had a much higher production value: they featured props and professional actors performing historical reenactments of speeches defending the commons, delivered in Union Square by the likes of Emma Goldman and Paul Robespierre.