[Reader-list] ITS EYES: surveillance cameras in Harlem

[rustam at leadindia.org]

I wonder if such an excercise would be relavant in an Indian city today. You can download the film
at http://itseyesfilm.com/

Rustam
Bangalore,

rustamvania at yahoo.com

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Surveillance cameras in Harlem

[In the 1930s and '40s] After-hours clubs thrived on white celebrities and society folks and those
slummers weren't mistreated -- the ex-slaves stood off to the side in awe, watching the wealthy
visitors like they was gods arriving for inspection. Crimes were ten to one in Brooklyn and the
Bronx compared to Harlem -- man, we policed the district ourself for muggers 'cause we knew it
would kill business. But the white press ran night-life business out of Harlem with propaganda that
still lasts today -- that in every shadow there's a big black nigger with a knife or gun ready to
rape or stick up white folks. -- Charles Mingus, Beneath the Underdog, 1971. 


In June 2001, members of the New York Surveillance Camera Players (SCP-New York) scouted and mapped
out the locations of public surveillance cameras in a portion of Harlem, a large and very famous
neighborhood in Manhattan. Once called Spanish Harlem, this Upper East Side neighborhood in New
York City is defined to the south and north by 125th and 135th Streets, and to the east and west by
Lexington Avenue and Frederick Douglass Boulevard. The SCP-New York chose this area for mapping
because, as recently as 1998, it was still pocked by large numbers of abandoned buildings and empty
lots where burnt-out buildings used to stand, and so could be used as a starting point for
documenting the connections between public surveillance and capitalist reclamation ("gentrification"
).

The SCP-New York wasn't the first group to scout and map this area. In 1998, the New York Civil
Liberties Union (NYCLU) commissioned an unprecedented project in which the locations of public
surveillance cameras were scouted and mapped out in all of Manhattan, not just Harlem. Reproduced
(with a few additions) on-line, this map locates a total of 2,397 surveillance cameras, 36 of which
are in Spanish Harlem.

As NYCLU Director Norm Siegel pointed out at the time, 36 was a surprisingly small number, small by
comparison with the numbers found in other neighborhoods. One would have thought -- following the
crime-fighting "logic" of surveillance -- that Harlem would have been filled with cameras.
Straight-up racist schitt Charles Mingus would have been all-too-familiar with: Harlem has lots of
poor people; poor people need money and so resort to committing crimes to get it; surveillance
cameras are installed to prevent and/or get evidence of precisely that kind of criminal activity.
But, as Siegel noted, the high concentrations of surveillance cameras were actually to be found in
rich neighborhoods, not poor ones. This clearly suggested that surveillance cameras are only
installed where highly valuable property is present. No highly valuable property? No (need for)
cameras. Crime prevention plays little or no role; high concentrations of cameras are even present
in rich neighborhoods that have low crime-rates. The only thing surveillance cameras do is create a
safe place to do business.

In June 2001, the SCP-New York mapped Spanish Harlem and found that, three years after the NYCLU
had been through the area, it was watched by almost twice as many cameras: there were now 67 in
all, 61 installed on private buildings and 6 on city-owned traffic poles or state-owned office
buildings. And yet, despite this steep increase, Harlem was relatively unsurveilled when compared
to such rich neighborhoods as Greenwich Village, Midtown Manhattan and the Fashion District, where
more than 200 cameras operate in each place.

In the SCP-New York's first map, a couple of details stand out. Most notably, there are several
dense concentrations of cameras, which is unusual for a relatively unsurveilled neighborhood. The
densest place is the small block between 131th and 132rd Streets, and between Fifth and Madison
Avenues, at which there are a total of 8 cameras. Exactly six blocks south, there is another dense
concentration (7 cameras in total). In both instances, all of the cameras are installed on private
property (in particular, on private residences, over the entrances, by landlords driven to paranoia
by too much Harlem-is-dangerous propaganda).

In June 2003, the SCP-New York returned to the area and mapped it again. The group found that, two
years after its first visit, the number of cameras had doubled (there are now 120 in total). And
so, since 1998, the number of cameras in Spanish Harlem has tripled. Alarming as this rate of
increase is -- it matches the break-neck speed in ultra-security-conscious Times Square -- it still
places Harlem among one the least surveilled neighborhoods in Manhattan. Not coincidentally,
another relatively unsurveilled neighborhood in Manhattan -- the Lower East Side -- is poor, not
rich.

Of the 120 cameras now in Harlem, 109 are installed on privately owned buildings; 7 are installed
on New York State office buildings; and 4 are installed on city-owned traffic poles. The two-fold
increase can clearly be attributed to the "private sector," which used to operate "only" 42 cameras
in the area. The dense block of cameras referred to above has gained 3 new ones, to make 11 in
total. There are two more large dense spots, most notably the strip on the north side of 125th
between Adam Clayton Powell and Frederick Douglass, where there are so many cameras that it is
impossible to put all of them down on a map.

See those dense spots? If current trends continue, that's what all of Manhattan will look like in
10 years.

-- 7 June 2003.




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Contact the New York Surveillance Camera Players
By e-mail SCP at notbored.org

By snail mail: SCP c/o NOT BORED! POB 1115, Stuyvesant Station, New York City 10009-9998