From our friend href="http://www.animalnewyork.com/">Bucky Turco: “THIS IS BULLSHIT! This
has nothing to do with permits and everything to do with painting trains.”
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From Today’s New York Times:

City Revokes Party
Permit Over Exhibit With Graffiti

By JIM RUTENBERG

/>The city has revoked a permit awarded to organizers of a block party
celebrating graffiti, saying it will not grant another one unless the group
scraps plans to have graffiti writers spray paint murals onto models of New York
City subway trains. The city acted hours after Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg
criticized the plans yesterday.

The block party, scheduled for Aug.
24, was to be held on West 22nd Street by the fashion designer Marc Ecko to
celebrate the upcoming release of the video game he designed for Atari, “Getting
Up: Contents Under Pressure.” The game features characters who vandalize a city
called New Radius with graffiti in defiance of a corrupt and tyrannical local
government.
Mr. Ecko was granted the permit on July 18, after months of
talks with community leaders in Chelsea.

The city revoked the permit
yesterday, the same day City Councilman Peter Vallone Jr. was quoted in The
Daily News as saying the party was “promoting criminal acts.”

In
agreeing with the councilman, Mr. Bloomberg ventured into a traditionally tricky
debate for mayors of a city that is considered a world art capital, namely: When
does art cross the line, and when, if ever, should government intervene?
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“Look, there is a fine line here between freedom of expression and going
out and encouraging people to hurt this city,” Mr. Bloomberg said during a visit
to a senior citizens center in Queens yesterday. “Defacing subway cars is hardly
a joke; encouraging people, kids in particular, to do that after all the money
we’ve spent, all the time we’ve spent removing graffiti.”

A few hours
later, the mayor’s Office of Community Affairs rescinded Mr. Ecko’s permit. The
office said it did so because Mr. Ecko had not explained that the event was to
promote a video game, which would require a different permit than the one needed
for an art exhibition.

The office invited Mr. Ecko to apply for a new
permit, and Mr. Bloomberg implied that it would be approved if Mr. Ecko dropped
the planned graffiti exhibit.

“We have talked to them and asked them
to not have a subway car motif to write graffiti,” Mr. Bloomberg said. “This is
not really art or expression, this is, let’s be honest about what it is: It’s
trying to encourage people to do something that’s not in anybody’s interest.”
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Clint Cantwell, a spokesman for Mr. Ecko, said Mr. Ecko would consider
the request but also said he doubted that Mr. Ecko would agree to it. “We’re
still hoping to find a middle ground with them, but it’s an uphill battle for
us,” he said, adding that the subway graffiti display was “really the heart of
this exhibition, and it’s celebrating the origins of graffiti in New York City,
and that’s the canvas we came up with.”

He said that the organizers
were upfront about the event, and that while they would continue to speak with
the city, they were considering finding an alternate location for the event,
possibly on private property.

“We’re not going to fight City Hall,”
he said. “We’re not going to win.