Welcome to the Tompkins Square Part Riots Digital Library Experience. This collection and repoisotry explores the events of what is considered a seminal moment onf New York City history: an examination of the developments that led to the Tompkins Square Park Riot of August 6 and 7, 1988. A timeline starts a month earlier and ends over a year later, when the last cases of police brutality finally recded. A tag cloud suggests names and keywords for searching through newspaper articles and visuals. Primary sources from newspapers, radio, and video accounts are made available for further study. Photographs both by journalists and amateurs allow a look at the riot close up. And artwork from the period, much of it created by local residents, interprets the events and brings the documentation of this library full circle.  We hope that the library gives credence to a community that has always sought to include everyone with a policy of tolerance – one that, stretched to its limits, was met with intolerance by a misguided and unprepared police department whose tactics of force and violence were forever captured, live, by those present at the scene the night of the riot. It is our wish that, by engaging with all of these documents, you can begin to make sense of the Tompkins Square Park riot of 1988.

Explore and Enjoy!