Liberation Squares plus NY Dick

This episode examines how urban design either enables or suppresses public expression and protest. Columbia architecture professor Vishaan Chakrabarti traces the history of Tompkins Square Park, which has been a site of civil unrest since 1857. The most famous riot occurred in 1874 when 7,000 workers clashed with 1,600 police officers in what labor organizer Samuel Gompers called 'an orgy of brutality.' Robert Moses redesigned the park in 1936 with what he believed was a riot-proof design, but this failed during the 1988 riots that Chakrabarti witnessed firsthand.

The episode contrasts this with protest spaces in the Middle East, particularly Cairo's Tahrir Square, where Chakrabarti observed diverse crowds of all ages and economic backgrounds coming together. He argues that such mass movements require 'broad swaths of public space' to be possible. Authoritarian regimes understand this connection - in Riyadh, a city of four million people has virtually no public spaces except shopping malls and Deera Square, used only for public executions and nicknamed 'Chop Chop Square' by expats for its pizza-sized blood drain.

The second half explores a different form of urban expression through Galen Smith's book 'New York Dick,' which analyzes penis graffiti on subway posters. Smith, a graphic designer, argues these anonymous drawings represent folkloric resistance to advertising bombardment. Unlike traditional graffiti that seeks fame or recognition, subway penis drawings are purely disrespectful responses to commercial intrusion, creating an unspoken community of resistance among thousands of New Yorkers who either participate in or silently acknowledge this crude but honest form of counter-communication.