SUMMARY OF THE PROJECT

On Thanksgiving 1990, the same weekend that Dances with Wolves opened, theater artists Gabriele and Nick erected a tipi made of 78 U.S. Domestic #3 mailbags in a New York City's then longest-existing shantytown known as the Hill, located at the foot of the Manhattan Bridge at Canal and Chrystie Streets. The tipi was named The Living Museum of the Nomad Monad and was dedicated on December 29, 1990, in commemoration of the centenary of the Wounded Knee Massacre, "in remembrance of the lives lost and to the sovereignty and dignity of all disenfranchised individuals today."

Until August 17, 1993 -- the day the City bulldozed the Hill including the tipi poles -- Gabriele and Nick performed theater, exhibited art, but mostly, they lived among their neighbors, getting to know and love them, and watching many of them die.

The journal [contact Gabriele Schafer for access] details their day-to-day lives as they navigate drug dealers, one of New York's largest-ever police corruption scandals, city politics in the Dinkins era (elected to clean up the homeless problem) and the media. And it traces the steps of how a shantytown went from the anonymity of waist-high huts hidden in the weeds, to a tour bus and celebrity stop; from addicts just getting by, to a drug supermarket; from a close-knit encampment, to a crime scene that entangles everyone from pushers, to users, to the cops, to the artists themselves, after one day the unspeakable happens: our most innocent neighbor burned to death in his hut in an arson fire that was targeting someone else.

With the 30-year anniversary approaching, it is important to finally recount this epic bit of New York City history. The people involved -- heroic and deeply flawed -- deserve to have their stories told. And mostly, Mr. Lee must never be forgotten.

BOOKS

• ETHNOGRAPHY BY DESIGN: SCENOGRAPHIC EXPERIMENTS IN FIELDWORK
  by Christine Hegel, Luke Cantarella, George E. Marcus (Bloomsbury Publishing - 2019)
• OFF SITES: CONTEMPORARY PERFORMANCE BEYOND SITE-SPECIFIC with Footnotes
  by Bertie Ferdman (Southern Illinois University Press - 2018)
• PAJ: A JOURNAL OF PERFORMANCE AND ART, Volume 37, Number 2
  contribution by Bertie Ferdman (MIT Press - 2015)
• THEATROGRAPHIE: HEINER MUELLERS THEATER DER SCHRIFT
  by Guenther Heeg, Theo Girshausen (Vorwerk 8 - 2009)
• THE CITY CULTURES READER,
  edited by Malcolm Miles and Tim Hall with Iain Borden (Routledge - 2004)
• MUELLER IN AMERICA
  contribution by Nick Fracaro; edited by Dan Friedman (Castillo Cultural Center - 2003)
• FRAGILE DWELLINGS
  by Margaret Morton (Aperture Foundation - 2000)
• CATHIERS DE MUSEE NATIONAL D'ART MODERNE
  by (Centre Georges Pompidou - 1998)
• ON EDGE--Performance at the End of the Twentieth Century
  by C. Carr (University Press of New England - 1993)
• TRANSITORY GARDENS, UPROOTED LIVES
  by Diana Balmori and Margaret Morton (Yale University Press - 1993)
• CULTURAL STUDIES, VOLUME 7, ISSUE 2 (Routeledge - 1993)
  Redeeming witness: in the tracks of the Homeless Vehicle Project, by Dick Hegdige, Appendix by Nick Fracaro
• THE HILL
  by Gabriele Schafer (unpublished journal)

(From the April/May 2013 exhibit at the New Museum)

• MANHATTAN PAYPHONES NOW DOUBLING AS TIME MACHINES TO 1993 (Curbed Staff re New Museum retrospective -- see audio above), Curbed, --April 4, 2013
• THIS WAS THE HOUSE THAT LOUIS BUILT - New York Newsday (Margaret Morton) --August 26, 1993
• HEARTBREAK HILL (editorial), New York Newsday --August 19, 1993
• CITY RAZES HOMLESS SHANTIES (William T. Slattery), New York Post --August 18, 1993
• CAMP BOOT (Sheryl McCarthy), New York Newsday --August 18, 1993
• FOR HOMELESS, A LAST HAVEN IS DEMOLISHED (Ian Fisher), New York Times --August 18, 1993
• REFUGEES AGAIN (E. Sachar, T. Shioya), New York Newsday --August 17, 1993
• 'TERRIFIED' FAMILIES IN BID TO BOOT HOMELESS (Rocco Parascandola), New York Post --January 2, 1993
• COPS NAB MAN SHOOTING CAR (Rocco Parascandola), New York Post --September 23, 1992
• AMERICA IS AN OLD COUNTRY (Dick Hebdige), Artforum --October 1992
• POINT OF RETURN (Bill Landis), The Village Voice --Summer 1992
• FEDS ZERO IN ON COPS (M. Parente, L. Levitt, D. Kociennierwski), New York Newsday --June 18, 1992
• THE MASTER BUILDER (J.A. Lobbia), The VillageVoice --June 17, 1992
• SHANTYTOWN FAMILY HONORS ONE OF ITS OWN (Daniel Hays), Daily News --June 11, 1992
• BLAZE OF GLORY IN SHANTYTOWN (Daniel Hays), Daily News --June 9, 1992
• CON HELD IN SHANTY FIRE DEATH (Daniel Hays), Daily News --June 5, 1992
• SHANTY DWELLERS CALL COPS ABUSIVE (Daniel Hays), Daily News --June 2, 1992
• INFERNO EN LA BARRIADA (EDLP), El Diario --May 31, 1992
• ARSON AT MANHATTAN BRIDGE SHANTIES LEAVES ONE DEAD (James Bennet), New York Times --May 31, 1992
• REMAINS OF DEADLY FIRE (Alan Raia), New York Newsday --May 30, 1992
• SHANTY INFERNO (Daniel Hays), Daily News --May 30, 1992
• CELEBRATION ON THE LOWER EAST SIDE (Bob Morris), New York Times --May 24, 1992
• IN SEARCH OF BOHEMIA (C. Carr), The Village Voice --February 4, 1992
• IN CHILL OF THE NIGHT, THE HOMELESS CHANGE HABITS (?) New York Times --January 21, 1992
• SHANTTOWNS BECOMING COMMONPLACE IN N.Y., Washington Post --January 4, 1992
• FOR SOME PEOPLE, HOME IS WHERE THE HILL IS (Jacquie McNish), [Toronto] Globe and Mail --October 14, 1991
• VOICE CHOICES (C. Carr), The Village Voice --September 10, 1991
• MEMORIALS OF WAR AND PEACE (Andre V. Tchelistcheff), The Livable City [Municipal Art Society] --September 1991
• KILLER CUTS AND KILLER COPS (?), Workers Vanguard --July 5, 1991
• OUR LOCAL CORRESPONDENTS: SHANTYTOWN (James Lardner), The New Yorker --July 1, 1991
• CITY PLANS RAIDS ON HOMELESS CAMPS (Michael Powell), New York Newsday --June 26, 1991
• HE'LL TAKE MANHATTAN (Don Helasy), New York Post --November 27, 1990
• SQUATTER WAR COMING TO 'THE HILL' (Andrea Peyser), New York Post --July 9, 1990
• The Yomiuri America (date?)

ESSAY

THEATER AND SEVEN-CARD-STUD (by Nick Fracaro)

PLAY

THIEVES THEATRE'S LAST STAND (not including Heiner Mueller's Despoiled Shore Medeamaterial Landscape with Argonauts, which was also performed as part of the evening.)

SHORT FILM (10:52) MADE IN 2019 IN HONOR OF MR. LEE