Neither more nor less

Not tonight's 30 degrees this night and warm enough to bring out the swarming East Village masses . A lone cop on a Vespa was there to shepherd them . This churning throng , chaotic and on its way to God knows where . Some descending alcoholically through the evening in dissipation to dormancy at some one's doorstep .

We can't recollect the exact date of this pictured evening . We do present here though a picture of John "the Commie"Potok ,wearing his red "Class War Organizer" T-shirt, attempting to impress two young women with pictures of his squat in a copy of the design magazine of the Sunday NY Times . One can see the boldly printed word "Squatter" on the page of the Times story about squatter chic in the East Village .

John's squat was one of the squats presented in the roundly praised story .The perceived squatter effrontery of this particular story praising the squatters residences almost certainly played a part in galvanizing the Giuliani administration to acting to evict not only the audacious 13th street squatters in the story but all the others too by sending a contingent of several hundred cops led by commissioner Bill Bratton , in a very slick suit and expensive shinning shoes , and a 1950s International Harvester built M75 Armored personnel carrier to 13th street .These evictions occurred in the spring of 1996 , a short time after this printed squatter chic celebration hit the streets .

Whatever , later on this warm night in spite of the occasional presence of a scooter cop--not uncommonly in these times on avenue A scooter cops would ride down the sidewalk two abreast to herd the unruly masses , dispersing them into the street and down the block-- some of this evening's more exuberant players managed to produce a nasty fight with at least one knife brandished .