Today the Reverend Billy staged a performance at the Edgar Allan Poe house on Thomson St. This is the house where Poe wrote "The Raven." It is apparently the last remaining residence of the author. A house across from it, the Judson House, is apparently also historic; some call it the birthplace of modern art, as a very important early gallery was there. Both buildings are slated to be torn down by New York University soon to make way for a 17-story law school building. This edifice will block out sunlight to a substantial part of Washington Square Park, which is already thrown into obscurity by other NYU buildings.

So I found myself on the scaffolding between Judson and Poe Houses today, clutching my accordion to my chest and trying to keep my black kimono from catching on the razor wire separating us from the street two stories below. Getting there was a very cloak-and dagger affair; we snuck in the back way through a nearby church. It took us a moment to fiddle with the church lock. There were about a dozen of us trying to look inconspicuous -- we were wearing all black and should therefore have been indistinguishable from any other group of New Yorkers, but we were also wearing large cardboard raven hats and carrying a ladder.

A woman and two little girls stood by on the sidewalk as we worked to get in. One daughter asked her a question which I didn't catch; all I heard was her reply: "I want to see what happens." God bless the mothers of this country, the ones who can spot an art experience before it happens, the ones who keep their daughters around to see rather than hurrying down the sidewalk! I hope she was among the crowd of about a hundred people who milled around a grocer's on Thomson St. as we got the performance under way.

I had never seen the inside of a squat before, only heard stories from friends more adventuresome than I. Chalk grafitti covered the walls between the two buildings. Much of it had to do with flight, peppered with a few declarations of love. Despite this motif I don't presume the occupants knew the history of the houses.

I regret to report that Judson House is in bad repair. The walls and ceiling are falling in, the stairs are crumbling at the edges. One of my fellow performers, who Billy dubbed "The Ravenettes" for the day, swore it was a shame to see monuments treated this way as she stepped over another pile of rubble. I presume Poe House has received similar treatment.

The Rev railed about the impending destruction. He was in good form, not as loopy as he sometimes gets. He mentioned the "Sea of Identical Details" repeatedly, one of my favorite of his homilies. This is what ties the Poe House to the other things Billy preaches about, the myriad Starbucks and the Disneyfication of Times Square: the obliteration of history and neighborhood character by new, personality-free buildings and the gargantuan organizations which build them. This is why I joined up with the Church of Stop Shopping. Neighborhood preservation is often a bourgeois pastime; I'm more worried about the ongoing colonization of cultures.

Bill's friend Tony, clad in a black polarfleece poncho and one of the cardboard raven hats with the huge ugly yellow beaks, read a little Poe over a loudspeaker. Below, the gathered crowd yelled "NEVERMORE!" back up to us, cheerfully. I don't know if they could hear me or the other muscians-- a saxophonist, a tuba player with thick glasses, a thin guy on an unamplified synth and another drumming on a bucket-- at all. Across the way, a grey-haired gent aimed a video camera at us. The sky glowed. I turned my face up to the drizzle and grinned, honking my accordion.

Eventually there came word that the police had arrested our legal observer, which isn't ever supposed to happen, so fearing for the normalcy of our lives we hurried out the way we'd come. Turns out our haste was unwarranted; for maybe half an hour after we slipped out, the police were still trying to figure out how we'd gotten in. When they did, they took Billy away and began cutting the strings of our huge vinyl signs. "Shame! Shame! Shame!" the neighborhood chanted. A woman next to me shouted out in anguish as the huge black-and-white sketch of Poe she had drawn by hand was pulled into the arms of a round policeman. I don't know if we're getting that back.

epilogue: Billy and the legal observer were released after three hours and have a trial coming up soon. Judson and Poe houses are still standing, but the city has refused to bring the matter up with the state landmarks committee. They will come down as soon as NYU says the word. Billy's body will be between the houses and the bulldozers. Email the Rev if you want to be there too.

UPDATE: Today, 10/3/00, I got word that the hearing for Poe House had been denied. Billy wrote us all saying to expect the house would be down by lunch, but to try to make it to Washington Square Park by noon anyway. I couldn't (can't protest on company time...)