‘RAIN, RAIN, GO AWAY, WE’LL PAY OUR RENT ANOTHER DAY’

On June 20, more than 150 people braved heavy showers to demonstrate for tenants’ rights (and taxi drivers, street peddlers, City University students, and hospital workers’ rights too) in Union Square. “Instead of building bunkers, we need to build affordable housing,” Assemblymember Scott Stringer declared.

Councilmember Margarita Lopez urged the demonstrators to keep pressure on politicians. And Queens tenant activist Penny LaForest roused the crowd with a delightfully profane tirade against Mayor Giuliani’s idea that an obedient, dissent-free city is somehow more “civil.” “I’m so sick of this ‘civility,’ it makes me want to puke,” she said. “There’s nothing as uncivil as an eviction.”