The 3000 Beatnik Riot: Part One

In the spring of 1961, responding to complaints from well-heeled homeowners around Washington Square Park in Greenwich Village, New York's Department of Parks and Recreation forbade young people from playing music around the park's turned-off fountain on Sunday afternoons. A few hundred young people gathered at the fountain for a peaceful protest. Cops rioted and mauled them. One local newspaper called it, however, a "beatnik riot."

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