In New York for Sale: Community Planning Confronts Global Real Estate, Tom Angotti describes the Cooper Square Alternate Plan, the first community plan in New York City prepared by an active neighborhood committee which sought to fight Robert Moses and planners’ rezoning and bulldozing of the Lower East Side. The effort put forth by community activists and the Cooper Square Community Development Committee and Businessmen’s Association to take part in the planning of their neighborhoods and ensure affordable housing exemplifies the fighting spirit that is required to make change in the world. Something that I think holds a similar spirit is the 1984 song “We’re Not Gonna Take It” by Twisted Sister.
“We’re Not Gonna Take It” is a song about rising against authority, especially when faced with injustices. With the lyrics “We’ve got the right to choose it / There ain’t no way we’ll lose it” and “We’re right/ We’re free / We’ll fight / You’ll see,” the link between Twisted Sister’s refusal to succumb to overbearing authority and the story of Cooper Square that Angotti describes is evident. Cooper Square activists saw that they had a right to fight for better community planning and they were determined to win that fight. And thus, as Angotti puts it, “Cooper Square is a saga of people who are fighting a global goliath and demonstrates that, to use the phrase of the World Social Forum, ‘a different world is possible.'”
Twisted Sister’s “We’re Not Gonna Take It” has been an anthem for multiple protests and events. Because of the song’s vague lyrics, the song can be applied to just about any situation in which people are rising up for themselves. The band purposefully did this, with frontman Dee Snider saying, “With ‘We’re Not Gonna Take It,’ whether I was singing about my parents, my teachers, my bosses, my peers, people around me, I felt it was important not to define it by actually naming names.” The song has been used as a rallying cry for teachers in Oklahoma and Arizona during the 2018 teachers’ strikes and has also been used during presidential campaigns. Paul Ryan used the song in his campaign in 2012 until Dee Snider asked him to stop because he did not agree with his politics and planned on voting for Obama. Similarly, Snider also asked Trump to stop using the song in his 2016 campaign because he did not want to be associated with Trump’s politics. “We’re Not Gonna Take It” stands as a voice for the underdog going up against the bigger man. Considering this, I find it very fitting for Angotti’s discussion on the Cooper Square activism.
Even though the song was released about twenty five years after the Cooper Square Alternate Plan, I still think that it would have made a fitting rally song for the Cooper Square Community Development Committee when they went against Robert Moses. Twisted Sister was able to capture the fighting spirit of the Cooper Square activists because those activists, as the song says, were “not gonna take it.”
Questions:
- What other songs capture the fighting spirit of the Cooper Square activists?
- How are we seeing the effects of community planning in NYC today?
- In what ways can we strengthen senses of community in NYC?
