STOP THE PRIVATIZATION OF CHELSEA COVE!

[From the Aaron Burr Society]:

Diana Taylor is back. The girlfriend of Mayor Bloomberg sits on the board of directors of Sothey’s Auction House [1], Brookfield Properties’ Zuccotti Park [2] and the Hudson River Park Trust [3]. This trifecta of interlocking boards will be partying at the annual meeting of the Hudson River Park Trust. Please join Occupy Museums and Sotheby’s Teamsters Professional Art Handlers who will be protesting this event.

• THURSDAY, APRIL 12TH, 6 P.M.
• ST. PAUL’s CHURCH
• 315 WEST 22nd STREET (near 8th avenue)

Sotheby’s locked the Teamsters’ Professional Art Handler’s out of their jobs last year. Zuccotti Park’s half private, half public model is well known. Less well known is how the Hudson River Park Trust [HRPT] giving public parkland to highly profitable and ethically challenged Marlborough Gallery.

A group of individuals has been working with the HRPT to create a non-profit organization in order to plan and operate Chelsea Sculpture Park. After choosing the site and developing the sculpture park, HRPT decided not to support the non-profit organization and instead they will allow Marlborough Gallery to use the site to promote its own artists. This arbitrary decision will allow a privately owned gallery, which works with Sotheby's, to use a public park as an extension of a private gallery. This is another example of the prioritization of the public space.

Trusts like HRPT are justified, because they use private funding to operate public space. Theoretically, this is supposed save taxpayers money. But what happens is that instead of taxing corporations and the 1% to properly maintain parks through city institutions, the public is no longer involved in the planning use and development of public space.

This is another example of the privatization of the public Commons. There has been a relentless push to privatize public schools and other public institutions like Social Security so the private companies can make profits form our taxpayers.

THE CHELSEA SCULPTURE PARK [A NON-PROFIT 501 (C 3) ORGANIZATION]: www.chelseasculpturepark.org

JOIN US TO PROTEST AT A HUDSON RIVER PARK TRUST EVENT

MARLBOROUGH GALLERY PLANS TO USE OUR PUBLIC PARK AS ITS OWN PRIVATE SPACE & POCKET MILLIONS OF DOLLARS

Speak up!

Don’t let our public park become privatized!

*Please tell your friends and neighbors to attend this meeting*­