Tompkins Square Park is a 10.5-acre public park in the Alphabet City section of the East Village neighborhood in the borough of Manhattan in New York City. It is rectangular in shape, and is bounded on the north by East 10th Street, on the east by Avenue B, on the south by East 7th Street, and on the west by Avenue A. St. Marks Place abuts the park to the west.

Tompkins Square Park is named for Daniel D. Tompkins (1774–1825), Vice President of the United States under President James Monroe and the Governor of New York from 1807 until 1817. The park was landscaped by 1850 and has been a public park since the late 1870s.

The park has long been a center for political activism and was the site of demonstrations against the Vietnam War in the 1960s. Yet by the 1980s Tompkins Square Park had become for many New Yorkers synonomous with the city's increased social problems. The park at that time was a high-crime area that contained encampments of homeless people, and it was a center for illegal drug dealing and heroin use.

In August 1988, riots erupted in the park when police attempted to clear the park of homeless people; 44 people were injured. Bystanders as well as homeless people and political activists got caught up in the police brutality that took place on the night of August 6-7, after a large number of police surrounded the park and charged at the hemmed-in crowd while other police ordered all pedestrians not to walk on streets neighboring the park. Much of the violence was videotaped and clips were shown on local TV news reports (notably including one by a man who sat on his stoop across the street from the park and continued to film while a police officer beat him up), but ultimately, no police officers were charged or punished.

Increasing gentrification in the East Village during the 1990s and 2000s, as well as enforcement of a park curfew and the eviction of homeless people, have changed the character of Tompkins Square Park. The park was closed and refurbished in the early 1990s and today, with its playgrounds and busy basketball courts, Tompkins Square Park is no longer considered dangerous.

The outdoor drag festival Wigstock, held in the park, is now part of the Howl Festival. That summertime festival also features one day of the two days of the Charlie Parker Jazz Festival, a musical tribute to a famous former resident of Avenue B. There is also an annual "Riot Reunion" concert every summer that features the neighborhood punk-rock band Leftover Crack.

External links

• Tompkins Square Park information at the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation website
• Letter from Tompkins Square Park
• The History of the Tompkins Square Police Riot, an archive of WBAI radio station
• Howl Festival