NEW YORK — Marc Ecko, who filed a lawsuit Friday in U.S. District Court against New York City on First Amendment grounds, is expected back in court this afternoon for a hearing to try and reinstate an event permit.
The fashion designer had planned to host a free-to-the-public block party this Wednesday on West 22nd Street, between 10th and 11th Avenues here. Ecko got his start in the business creating graffiti-style airbrushed apparel out of his parents’ garage. The party, dubbed “Marc Ecko’s Getting Up Block Party,” planned to feature replicas of New York City Transit’s “blue-bird” subway cars, at 48-feet long and standing eight feet tall. The mock trains were to be transformed into urban works of art by 20 graffiti writers, among them Cope2, T-Kid, Dash, Ces, Pink and Daze.
But the city revoked the event permit that Ecko, founder and president of Marc Ecko Enterprises, had obtained July 18. The Mayor’s Office won’t restore the permit unless Ecko agrees not to paint on any canvas in the form of a mock train because, according to city officials, such activity might encourage people to engage in unlawful graffiti.
At a press conference on Thursday, Ecko said: “In my 13 years of business, I have never held a press conference in New York City. That said, I have never been told by the government how, and under what circumstances, I can create something. Contrary to some officials’ belief that graffiti is a gateway crime, for me it was a gateway to entrepreneurship. The designs we created here and sold to thousands of retailers worldwide are all products of New York’s graffiti heritage.”
Ecko is represented by Daniel Perez of Kuby & Perez.
Arthur Eisenberg, legal director of the New York Civil Liberties Union, wrote a letter to Mayor Michael Bloomberg supporting Ecko’s case, in which he stated he is “deeply disappointed in the City’s decision,” to revoke the permit.
“If an artist chooses to paint on her own canvas or wall-board or cut-out replicas of subway cars and chooses to do so in the graffiti style, such artistic expression is entitled to plenary protection under the First Amendment,” Eisenberg wrote.
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Citing Brandenburg v. Ohio (1969), Eisenberg continued: “The Supreme Court observed that even advocacy that might possibly inspire unlawful conduct does not lose its First Amendment protection unless such expression, ‘is directed to inciting or producing imminent lawlessness action and is likely to incite or produce such action.'”
Ecko was unavailable for comment. The block party was to coincide with the release of Ecko’s graffiti-based video game, “Marc Ecko’s Getting Up: Contents Under Pressure.”
A company spokeswoman said, “Hopefully [the permit] will be reinstated on Monday,” allowing the event to go on as scheduled.