In this artistically shot video, London-based, Irish director and photographer Scott Carthy aims his lens at an issue related to Section 1050.6(c) of the New York City Transit Rules of Conduct. Section 1050.6(c) says that, under certain circumstances, performers may work in subway stations, but they cannot operate within subway cars.
After years of looking the other way, in 2014, the NYPD began to arrest these performers in much larger numbers. Some people claim this different pattern of enforcement is the result of a new police commissioner, Bill Bratton. According to an article in Business Insider,
"Forty-six subway dancers have been arrested and charged with reckless endangerment since January, an NYPD spokesman said in April. Another 50 dancers with less flashy tricks (essentially those who keep their feet on the ground), have been charged with the lesser count of disorderly conduct.
In total, subway panhandling and peddling arrests are up 271% year over year with 371 arrests in 2014, compared to 100 by this period in 2013, according to NBC.
The sharp increase appears to be rooted in a quality of life campaign helmed by newly minted Police Commissioner Bill Bratton.
Bratton, who cut his teeth in New York City tackling subway crime, was brought up on the broken-windows theory of policing: Crack down on small but highly visible crimes of disorder such as turnstile jumping, prostitution, and vandalism, and rates of more serious crimes will fall as well. Panhandling falls into this low-level crime category."
Read more of this article here.
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Newest 2 Comments
True. I can see both sides. The reasoning behind the law is to prevent any passenger's movement from being obstructed.
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Well, to be fair, a lot of the dancing these performers were doing were more like acrobatics.
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