(Having occasionally written and donated some articles to The Shadow during the last three decades--which were occasionally published by the Lower East Side newspaper--thought 2022 was now a good time to interview by email The Shadow"s editor, Chris Flash, about the newspaper's history, Manhattan's "fourth estate" and New York City news coverage in the 21st century. Text of this interview was also previously posted on the Upper West Side Patch's website).
Why is the Lower East Side newspaper called "The Shadow"?
CHRIS FLASH [CF]: We were discussing the idea of creating an underground newspaper and threw a bunch of names around. I suddenly came up with THE SHADOW, after the 1940s radio show, featuring a detective named Lamont Cranston, who solves crimes and murders in unique ways. Each show was introduced with an eerie voice that said: "Who knows where evil lurks in the hearts of men? The SHADOW knows!"
How long has The Shadow newspaper been around?
CF: We published our first issue in March 1989. We took a five year break in 2008, but have resumed published regularly since 2013. Covidmania forced us to stop for more than two years, but we have just published a new issue (Issue #63, on August 4, 2022).
Why was The Shadow newspaper created? And who was involved, historically, in initially establishing The Shadow newspaper?
CF: The SHADOW came about as a result of the August 6,1988 Police Riot in Tompkins Square, in which kops from all over the city descended on Tompkins Square Park on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, in furtherance of a non-existent park curfew. A week earlier, a few kops chased us out of the park with force, hitting people with clubs, announcing that "the park is closed."
Over the following seven days, kops built up their forces inside and outside of the park, with a mobile command center and cops on horses and marching on foot in formation. Quite a spectacle! They were determined to kick our asses if we dared to object to their enforcing their curfew that coming weekend. Like the Viet Cong, we also built up our forces in preparation for the conflict that kops were setting up for us, but, unlike them, we operated in the SHADOWS.
On the night of August 6, all hell broke loose, with kops indiscriminately beating people within range of their clubs, from demonstrators opposing their presence to passersby to workers in nearby restaurants. Among many instances of brutality, I saw kops beat the crap out of an elderly homeless woman on her way into the park to sleep for the night, unaware of what was happening outside the park.
Kops ran into the 7A Café, beating a waitress - when her manager came to her aid, kops dragged the manager out of the café by her hair. Kops on foot chased us up and down Avenue A, west on St. Marx Place and along side streets as mounted kops on horseback running down St. Marx beat people, polo-style.
To thwart identification, riot kops had black elastic bands covering their badge numbers. They even brought in a helicopter, which blew hats off kops' heads - watching them scramble to retrieve their hats, Keystone Kops-style, was hilarious! By 6:00am, kops withdrew, enabling them to claim a "victory" because they had kept us out of the park until the "official" hour at which it opened that day.
On our side, we were able to claim a "victory" as we had REFUSED to back down in the face of police state repression. Immediately, as we retook the park, some raided the nearby Christodora House, a settlement house at Avenue B and Ninth Street that was built in 1929 for poor immigrant arrivals, but which by 1988 had become a luxury condo for the wealthy.
The lobby guard wisely split as a large tree in a planter was dragged from the lobby and thrown onto Avenue B. The call went out to "save the tree!!!!" so it was planted in the park.
In the aftermath of the Tompkins Square Police Riot, mainstream media reports in print and on television were sympathetic to those assaulted by riot kops. Video provided free to local tv stations by a witness to the riot that showed kops brutalizing people with covered badges, was broadcast nightly. Even NYC Mayor Ed Koch called it a "police riot."
However, as the days and weeks passed, the tone in the media shifted. Suddenly it was reported that WE started the riot--that WE had caused all those innocent kops to come from all over the city to our neighborhood to restore order. Suddenly those kops were the "victims!" Police commissioner Ben Ward told the media that we were "White kids from Scarsdale!!" Talk about adding INSULT to injury!
Fortunately, in our scene, we have a large number of politically-minded, aware and active writers, photographers and artists who were equally concerned about the mis-use of police to pave the way for gentrification and to make our neighborhood "investor friendly" and safe for the monied transients whose desire to live here was causing the removal of longtime residents and small businesses and venues that served our community.
I already knew many such creative and politically-active people, but the riot brought even more of us together. We were all committed and PASSIONATE. Having shared that common experience, we were comrades!
From the beginning, the SHADOW has functioned with a core group, but we have had many people join us, some for a short while, others for decades. In order to run effectively, The SHADOW is a combination of a collective that seeks input from everyone and an editorial staff that makes final decisions. (end of part 1. To be continued)
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