Though the New York Surveillance Camera Players (SCP-New York) have consistently focused on Manhattan -- all of the group's walking tours and most of its performances have taken place there -- the borough of New York City known as Brooklyn is also very important, especially the neighborhood somewhat inaccurately called "Williamsburg."
Properly speaking, Williamsburg is an historic neighborhood centered around Broadway, which, like the street of the same name in Manhattan, is long and straight. It turns into the entrance to the Williamsburg Bridge when it approaches the East River. In the late 1950s, Williamsburg was devastated by the construction of the Brooklyn-Queens Expresswway, which cut right through Broadway and thus divided the entire neighborhood in half. While the eastern half of Williamsburg managed to survive this butchery, the western half -- the isolated stretch that lies between the East River and the BQE -- was eventually ruined and almost totally abandoned. For decades, the only people who lived on "the wrong side" of the BQE were poor immigrants, mostly from Poland, Italy and Puerto Rico.
In the late 1990s -- thanks to rising rents in Manhattan, the route of the "L" subway line, and close proximity to the Lower East Side -- this lonely and very polluted area started to attract artists and hipsters in search of cheap housing. In 1998, during the Yuppie Go Home campaign, "Hipster Williamsburg" was also home to several members of the SCP-New York, who staged the group's second, third and fourth performances while living there, that is, before they too were priced out of the neighborhood and had to move elsewhere.
In early May 2003, the SCP-New York returned to "Hipster Williamsburg" and made a map of surveillance cameras operating in public. The results were truly striking. Though small, the area contains a relatively large number of surveillance cameras, 94 in all: 90 installed on privately owned buildings; and four installed on buildings owned by the City of New York. Remarkably, there are no cameras in operation along Bedford Avenue between 12th Street and Metropolitan Avenue, that is, in the heart of the "hip" area. With a handful of exceptions (i.e., cameras installed on brand-new buildings), the vast majority of the privately owned cameras are installed on or near old-style commercial loading docks and are obviously used to discourage or record incidences of theft. Given the bulk or "raw" nature of the commodities involved (sugar and spices, oil and gas, iron and other construction materials), it seems likely that the type of crime being fought or perpetrated here is organized crime, that is, Mafia-related activities. In some places, especially along Kent Avenue, where one finds elegant Italian restaurants located next-door to garbage-carting companies, the scene looks like something right out of The Sopranos.
Though one can't be sure, it appears that organized crime (of one sort or another) also plays an important role in at least one of Williamsburg's four city-owned surveillance cameras. Located atop a pole erected at the intersection of 10th Street and Kent Avenue, this camera appears to be operated by the Department of Transportation (DOT), which controls several lots and buildings in the area. The DOT has at least two cameras installed on its buildings near the Williamsburg Bridge; huge signs proclaim that the DOT is using (other?) cameras to prevent dumping. In the case of the 10th Street camera, perhaps the DOT is trying to stop the mob from stealing cars from the city's impound lot, which is located on the west-side of the intersection. But then why do the cords coming out of this camera lead in the opposite direction, that is, away from the impound lot, across (and over!) the street and into an apparently unused building? Perhaps this camera is actually being used by the mob to watch the DOT, and not the reverse.
One other city-owned camera merits description. Clearly operated by the New York Police Department and not the DOT, this camera is hidden inside an "innocent-looking" globe-shaped housing, that is, intentionally designed to look like (be confused with) an ornament or a light. Unaccompanied by a sign that warns potential criminals and/or re-assures potential crime-victims that a high-powered surveillance camera is in operation, it isn't capable of producing any sort "deterrent" effect on crime. The only thing it is good for is spying. Worse still, this camera's location -- on the Williamsburg Bridge at precisely the point that it crosses over Bedford Avenue -- allows it to secretly observe activity (the movements and identities of pedestrians, bicyclists and automobile drivers) on the bridge itself and on Bedford Avenue as far north as Metropolitan Avenue. It is a classic example of what's wrong with public surveillance: i.e., everything.
By e-mail SCP@notbored.org
By snail mail: SCP c/o NOT BORED! POB 1115, Stuyvesant Station, New York City 10009-9998
