“They were just political props, thrown into danger for a photo op in a foreign land.”

 

Inside the Canal Street ICE Raid

It was 3-something on Tuesday, Oct 21st. Diwali. It was my first ‘day off’ in weeks—the tail end of the fall event and nice weather tour crush. Weekends running around being a soccer coach for my kid’s team (technically I’m the waterboy and my wife is the coach). I’m the hype man, telling the kids how well they’re doing.

From giving 15 years of tours on Canal Street—in my prime, often 3, 4, occasionally 5 a week—I’ve learned to project my voice, weaving with tourists and teaching them how to respectfully interact with the street without getting run over.

Canal Street—the center of the city. A World’s Fair of an avenue exploring the wonders of diversity. Canal Street divides the Lower East Side, Chinatown, Little Italy, SoHo, and Tribeca; the hand-carved old Tenements and now-opulent Cast-Iron factory buildings and their luxury goods and apartments; and the last remaining sweatshop buildings, their inhabitants sewing dresses for the luxury stores close by.

Perhaps Canal Street sews it all together. The street, often ‘exposed’ and derided by the right-wing New York Post to propagandize the dangers of New York to those who barely spend any time here. It is where I feel most alive; an artery of culture, old and new, poor and rich, real and fake, tourists and fast walkers.

(Pearl Paint right after purchase, 2014).

The pollution and smells of the old waterways have been replaced by the pollution and smells of the most frenetic traffic in New York, a truck route traversing the city from the Manhattan Bridge to the Holland Tunnel, the noise desperately holding the Tribeca and SoHo luxury forces at bay; sort of.

$20,000 lofts above weed stores, fake goods, hip British clothing (with mustached 30-year-old salesmen with beautiful socks), and rubber manufacturers mix with a revolving door of streetwear and temporarily popular brands.

Great food; no-frills Chinatown bakeries near fancy restaurants and coffee shops in old renovated sweatshops. Hypebeast sneaker stores, Indian and Chinese-owned souvenir shops, Chinese fruit vendors and jewelers running out of the old Diamond District storefronts—one known as the Hip Hop Jeweler, A$AP Eva, owner of Popular Jewelry, her storefront lined with countless photos of her posing with famous rappers, musicians, and celebrities.

(Side note, if you want to know who most wants the sellers gone, look at the buildings. In 2014, Vornado Realty Trust purchased New York’s beloved Pearl Paint flagship building for $15 million. The building was New York’s art supply mecca, supplying the Abstract Expressionists, Pop, and Punk artists, yet eventually bled out of business by Amazon. The apartments sold this year for around $3.7 million each, with the penthouse now renting for $20,000-a-month. In the building next door is a weed shop—rules for thee, not for me.

New York’s bazaar. The fake goods draw people from all over, many taking public transit, others taxis, and some driving in their large Ford trucks and leaning out of the safety of their obnoxiously high windows.

Anyway, I digress—my legs were sore as shit—and I was working out of bed on my laptop when I saw a Bluesky post about a raid happening… at rush hour. That is idiotic, I thought. I doubled back and looked at the time of the post, 12 minutes ago. Holy shit.

I grabbed my tour guide camera and batteries. My professional cameras were all packed, and I kind of wanted to use the small Fuji, the camera I’ve used to photograph the street since 2013 or so. But it’s not ideal for a provoked spontaneous protest by hungry-ass New Yorkers just getting off work, on a busy highway.

Now I would love to have conversations in the comments with anyone who has a different viewpoint on all of this, but please read in full before you do. I believe many of the ICE agents just need the money. I believe many are propagandized into believing they are currently helping make the city safer and that we’re being politicized to hate them. But the media was tipped off. This was clearly a stunt to provoke.

If you truly want to make changes to Canal, this is not the way. And who should you believe, a 43-year-old family man, NYC tour guide, and lifelong NYer, or a tabloid rag owned by an Australian oligarch (i.e. time to unfollow the NY Post).

I rushed to the subway and arrived by 4:15, just as the tides were turning and the crowd was growing. Amazing, seasoned news photographers and videographers were diving all over the busiest downtown artery in the city, dodging trucks, handsy ICE agents, and screaming New Yorkers. The formerly confident agents changed expressions quickly, the primary of whom wore a Yamaha hat and had a Norse pagan tattoo on his hand.

Norse mythology and symbolism were used to construct a pseudo-historical basis for Nazi ideology, adopted by Himmler’s SS. You fucking sent that dude to Canal Street at rush hour? You know how many lives were risked with that move?

Watch this moment.

Chants of ‘Shame’ permeated through the noise of the trucks. You can see the moment they realized they were just political props, thrown into danger for a photo op in a foreign land, surrounded by cars, trucks, and protestors. They gathered into a circle to avoid being separated into the crowd, a terrifying thought.

These agents might have thought this was a real mission, but they must have known on some level that it was for the media with all the cameras around at the beginning, showing off these poor Senegalese men making a living selling Christmas presents for the holiday season, disappeared for a low-level infraction—for the crime of being poor and black.

(My great-grandfather, who came to the East Side from Sicily in his 20s, also supported his family by selling shoes. Not too long ago the Italians and Irish were not considered White).

The agents carried an optimistic amount of zip ties, ultimately detaining 9 immigrants and 4 protestors, numbers of which the NYPD easily does any random Tuesday without causing this amount of danger. The NYPD looked pissed.

The ‘what do we do’ moment.

I mostly stayed to the edges. I didn’t want to get in the way of the news photographers doing their jobs. Those close shots were being recorded by countless people bouncing around like pinballs, so I didn’t feel like that would be too beneficial, especially with my slow camera.

I tried to capture overview photos to show a broad view of what was happening, occasionally running ahead to intersect the action to get some close photos. I riskily used a slower shutter speed in the dusk winter light, to create a little movement, but which in turn caused me to fuck up many of the photos. I’m happy with the decision, but wouldn’t have made it if I was a news photographer.

And I was a protestor too. As I said, my voice can project, and this was a time to speak to the agents one-to-one. Make them know that we see them. ‘I see you,’ I ‘said’ many times.‘If you don’t get out now this is a stain that cannot be removed. This is a stain on your soul.’ 

The business casual polka dots woman was an absolute legend, her bravery contagious. To see a hero in action in front of your eyes is quite a thing. She was brave, but I didn’t feel like I was brave because being brave involves being scared. The everyday New Yorkers weren’t scared in the slightest; they were fed up.

I personally didn’t see any protestors assaulting or infringing on the handsy agents, but you can watch the videos.

Some of the agents did not seem well-trained. This man above holding a shield was terrified and pushed a guy with a bike down. I had to yell ‘De-escalate’ to get him to freeze and walk away from the assault.

The backup armored vehicle arrived, only creating more commotion. The ICE agents would have returned much easier without having to make sure that the massive vehicle made it through, necessitating force on a few protestors.

Clearing the way in front of the NY Law & Order Supreme Court building, a perfect backdrop for a photo-op.

On the route that I give for my tours.

You could see the relief in the agents when they saw the FBI building. NYPD and about 20 ICE agents waited behind a barricaded area. I ran ahead of everyone to the pen to speak to the rest of the agents, who were unaware of the fear their comrades had just experienced. I projected, so it was unavoidable to hear.

“NEW YORK IS SAFE! NEW YORK IS SAFE! I’ve lived here for 43 years—my family, my kid live here—it’s SAFE! We don’t need you!”

Statistical source that New York City is a safe city, nearly recovered from the pandemic and NY Post-promoted crime bump—one of the safest cities in the U.S., even more so when you consider traffic deaths.

One of the agents verbally scoffed and made a ‘yeah right’ type joke to his fellow agents. The rest remained still. These people really believe the propaganda. This made me fiery and I yelled, ‘You think that’s fucking funny, with that stupid-ass smirk. This is my home, we don’t need you. We don’t want you. I SEE you!’ The agents all looked at each other unsure of what to do, conversed for a second, and retreated to the Federal Plaza Immigration Court building, leaving their teammates behind.

NYPD officers streamed past me into the barricade. I said, ‘excuse me,’ and they all gave me an ‘It’s okay,’ and a ‘no worries,’ politely hinting that they also didn’t approve of the operation.

The above agent was one of the most terrified and aggressive, and I saw him push multiple people. It must be quite the scary experience being the largest and most visible of the agents in the crowd. Here he finally made it to the barricades, protestor in hands, when he suddenly saw me there with my camera up. You can see a guilty expression in his posture and suprised Oakley covered eyes. Or at least that’s how I interpret this look.

Here’s the moment when the remaining ice agents coalesced to retreat behind the barricades.

The backup returned after realizing they had left their teammates behind.

They are certainly not going away, but I wonder if they’ll go back into Canal in the near future. They were shook.

 

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