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Edward KocheEdward Koche
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Session:         Page of 617

manufacturers live in the Village; it's no longer for the artists -- it's too expensive for the artists. And the people -- we're now talking about blacks who come on week-ends primarily -- are looking for trouble. I mean they are tough. They have turned the park into, as I've referred to in my correspondence with Captain Fortune of the 6th Precinct, the largest open-air casino in the world. They'll be in groups of ten or 15, very toughlooking. It's hard for me to describe it. Their clothing, their earrings (I'm talking about the males), the machismo that comes out of it: it's an incredible, threatening experience.

I had an experience not very long ago which bothered me. I was walking through Washington Square Park on Thanksgiving Day, the day that I described that incident over on 8th Street and 6th Avenue, the guy pissing into the street. But just subsequent to that as I'm walking through the park to go over to Mary Nichols', who lives in University Towers just south of the park, I'm walking through and there is a group of about ten black guys standing near the southern part of the park at Thompson Street. There is a young white woman in her late twenties, and a black guy sort of dressed like a pimp (by that I mean in one of those pimp-type hats, as it's become known -- a large fedora) is standing in front of her walking backwards, so to speak, as she's trying to walk. It's clear that he's kind of sweet-talking her, if that's the language.





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