Celebration of Bob Nichols: August 20, 2011 in Glover, Vermont

Bread and Puppet Theater announces a celebration of the
life of friend and colleague, Bob Nichols.  The event will be held
at the Bread and Puppet farm in Glover, Vermont, starting with a
procession and ending with a pot luck dinner. August 20, starting
at 6 PM.


Robert Nichols was a poet and novelist, the author of In the Air, a
collection of short stories, and The Steam Room, a work of comic
fiction, among other works. Mr. Nichols was involved in the
anti-war, anti-nuclear, and conservation movements for decades.
He had a background in landscape architecture and playground 
design.  The following is the story of Bob's last arrest.

Boots Wardinski, 64, a Newbury farmer and former Marine, 
being escorted out of Congressman Welch's Main Street Burlington 
office after closing on Monday.


The 'Occupation' Of Rep. Welch's Office, Published 4/1/07
by Robert Nichols
On March 21, I was among the 30 or so protesters who occupied U.S.
Rep. Peter Welch's office in Burlington. Similar actions, part of
the Occupation Project sponsored by Voices for Creative
Nonviolence, have been taking place in other states. The point is
to occupy, or rather take a stand, in the office of a congressional
representative in order to extract a pledge from the congressman.
The pledge? To vote against additional war funding -- in this case,
the spending bill authorizing another $100 billion-plus for the
wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

In the days before the protest, I learned that some established
Vermont anti-war groups were not taking part in the Occupation
Project. They had met with the congressman and understood his
position. He had campaigned as an end-the-war advocate. Peter Welch
was the wrong target, they thought.

Still, under the circumstances, it seemed wrong not to take some
action. This was a bill to continue the war's funding. The
Constitution was written by persons who were former subjects of
King George III and whose memories were still fresh. The check
against a runaway executive was to grant Congress the power of the
purse. The spending bill, in this case, seemed the last check, a
defining moment.

And so we "occupied" Peter Welch's office. We were greeted
cordially by the staff. It was the day before the vote. We were
told the congressman was busy in committee meetings on Capitol Hill
but would address us by telephone when he came out. A microphone
connected to the telephone was set up on a desk. The 30 of us sat
on the floor in good spirits. There was a song. Then we read out
the names of the dead GIs and Iraqi civilians.

Then Welch got on the phone, and a dialogue began. But as we
learned that the congressman would not take the pledge or say how
he would vote one way or another, the conversation grew more
impassioned and hostile.

The police appeared at the office at closing time -- they were
extremely courteous and good-natured (this is Vermont's most
sophisticated city after all). By that time, just six of us
remained. We followed our plans to be arrested, choosing to leave
in handcuffs. We made our statement to the press.

Still, what we had done left me with an uneasy feeling. I was
disappointed. My guess was that Peter Welch was acting against his
own conscience, a difficult and perhaps agonizing choice, in order
to help the House Democrats maintain discipline and stay united.
Somehow or other, the situation could not be left that way,
however.

The next morning -- this was the day of the final budget vote in
the House, the day for the Democratic majority to get its act
together to pass a measure giving more than $124 billion to fund
the war in order to end the war. This evidently was, in political
and legislative terms, the only and best action. It was still
unacceptable. It was a real disaster for the country and somehow
shameful.

And so two of us went back to Welch's office -- I and another
Thetford resident, Will Allen, an organic farmer -- and announced
that we were there for something that is part of the creative
nonviolent tradition: to fast in order to speak truth to power. We
were to fast until Peter Welch, in a sense speaking to all
Vermonters, made a clear and honest statement of the consequences
of the supplemental funding bill -- consequences that include
further casualties and horrors in Iraq in the coming weeks, months
and year. We would fast until we heard him make that clear and
honest statement.

But actually he could not say what we wanted to hear.

There was another reason for our being there. The reason was to
mourn the passing of our nation's institutional memory. I, myself,
and Will Allen are both old persons. The situation now is the same
as it was at the end of the Vietnam war in 1968-69. That war might
have ended then, but it did not. The reason is that no one in the
administration -- and too few in the country at large --could say
the war was all a mistake. A million Vietnamese killed, tens of
thousands of our own soldiers dead or coming back with terrible
wounds or traumatized by having to kill people in front of their
own houses. All for no reason. All because of a mistake.

We waited and fasted until we heard from Welch. Both Will Allen and
I count ourselves personal friends of Peter Welch. But he could not
admit that there were unspeakable consequences to the bill. He
tried. He wrote out a statement for us. But he couldn't state the
facts.

This is how the "occupation" event was covered in the Burlington Free Press
Six arrested in protest at Welch's office
March 22, 2007   By Sam Hemingway
Six demonstrators were arrested on trespass charges Wednesday night inside the Burlington offices of Rep. Peter Welch, D-Vt., while protesting what they said was Welch’s unwillingness to firmly oppose the Iraq war.

“Last November, we elected a congressman we thought would end the war but instead the war is being expanded,” said Patrick Kearney, 55, of Thetford as he emerged from the building in handcuffs and escorted by police. “We can’t get a yes or no answer from our congressman about whether or not he is going to fund the war.”

The six, all men ranging in age from 27 to 87, were unhandcuffed by police and released after peacefully departing the building. They were told to report to the Burlington Police Department today to receive their arrest citations. The arrests were carried out by three officers, Chief Tom Tremblay and Deputy Chief Mike Shirling.

Later Wednesday night, Welch spokesman Andrew Savage said Welch would prefer that the charges against the six men not be prosecuted. “We’re fine with the charges’ being dropped,” Savage said.

The arrests came after a five-hour sit-in at Welch’s office by 30 demonstrators who were demanding that he oppose a spending bill up for a House vote today that contains funding for the Iraq war.

When the office closed at 6 p.m., the demonstrators were told they must leave or face arrest. Most of the demonstrators chose not to undergo arrests for family and other reasons and left the office, said Michael Colby, 43, of Worcester.

The $124 billion funding bill provides money for war operations but also has language requiring that all troops be out of Iraq by Aug. 31, 2008.

In addition, the bill sets a series of deadlines for turning over military control of Iraq to Iraqi troops and contains guarantees that U.S. combat troops have proper armor before going into battle. The Senate is preparing similar legislation, and President Bush has vowed to veto the measure.

“We are not for this war, and we do not want to pay a dollar more for this war here in Vermont,” Liza Earle of Richmond told Tricia Coates, Welch’s state office director shortly after the group entered the office at 1 p.m. “You cannot fund and oppose this war at the same time.”

At first, the group said they would not leave until they had a conversation with Welch. The group included Vermont state poet Grace Paley of Newbury, perennial Liberty Union candidate Peter Diamondstone of Brattleboro and Dennis Morrisseau of West Pawlet, who ran as the Impeach Bush Now candidate against Welch last year.

As they waited for Welch’s phone call, members of the group discussed their opposition to the war, read the names of American and Iraqi war dead and, at one point, sang the protest song “We Shall Not Be Moved.”

“If he votes for $100 billion for the war, that could have gone for veterans’ benefits,” said Boots Wardinski, 63, of Newbury, who later became one of the six people arrested. “So if he votes for that, he’s saying to the veterans: ‘Screw you.’”

The conversations among the demonstrators and Coates and Welch were mostly cordial. Welch staff members passed out chocolate cookies to the demonstrators, and Buddy, a golden retriever owned by Welch staff member Susan Elliott, occasionally meandered about the room.

At 3:35 p.m., Welch called from his Washington, D.C., office and told the group via speaker phone that he was undecided on the $124 billion military spending bill.

In his remarks, however, Welch appeared to be leaning toward supporting the measure, saying it might be the best way for Congress to mandate a quick, orderly troop withdrawal from Iraq.

“What my decision will be based on is my judgment, and I’ll have to make this judgment as to whether voting for or against the bill is going to hasten the day when we can end this war,” Welch told the group.

Welch also reminded the demonstrators that he supported other strongly worded legislation aimed at ending the war. During his campaign, he often spoke of his opposition to the war and called for the resignation of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who did resign after the Democrats won control of Congress in November.

Welch spoke to the group for a half hour but failed to convince them that the bill he remained undecided on had merit. Instead, his stance drew sharp criticism from the group, most of whom said they voted for Welch in November.

“It’s absurd, when I think about it, that my future and the future of other students all over Iraq and Vermont and our country is being compromised because we are pouring all of our resources into a black hole,” said Renee Morley, a University of Vermont student living in Essex.

Wednesday’s demonstration was one of a series of actions backed by the Voices for Creative Non-violence, a Chicago-based group that has staged protests in states around the country to pressure members of Congress to oppose war funding.

The bill that was the target of the protesters has split the anti-war movement. MoveOn.org, a liberal Internet organization, supports the bill. Savage said Welch had received “dozens” of phone calls Wednesday from around the country urging him to vote for the legislation.

In addition to Kearney, Wardinski and Colby, the demonstrators arrested were Bob Nichols, 87, of Thetford; Palmer Legare, 27, of Cabot; and Will Allen, 70, of Thetford.

Robert Nichols Died on October 14, 2010

Grace Paley's partner, Bob Nichols passed away this week.  They had lived together in Thetford, Vermont for decades.  He was 92 years old. Here is a clip, from several years ago, speaking about his concern for Washington Square, which he had helped to preserve in the sixties.

Nichols, a poet and novelist born in Worcester, Massachusetts, left home when he was young and became a landscape architect. He ... has published several volumes, including a collection of short stories published by the Johns Hopkins University Press,  In the Air.  Nichols’ other books include Slow Newsreel of Man Riding Train, Address to the Smaller Animals, Red Shift, and numerous essays on economics and politics, among other subjects. A graduate of the Harvard School of Design, he described himself as an “activist and sometime organizer, involved in the anti-war, anti-nuclear and conservation movements."                         -from a Dartmouth College announcement.




Bob was a farmer, a poet, a playwright, a landscape architect and a community activist.
This winter there will be a staging of several of his short plays in New York City and hopefully this presentation will be repeated in Vermont in the early summer.

This is a tape that Liza Bear made with Bob Nichols about Washington Square.


This is alao by Liza Bear-- tape with Bob at a Grace Paley memorial.


Here is an article from 2006 in The Villager about Washington Square:
Square’s fountain to be moved; water jets will move musicians

Luther Harris, author of a definitive book on the history of Washington Square, displayed a large photo of Frederick Law Olmstead, the “father of American landscape design,” as he read his statement at the Art Commission. Harris said he was trying to emphasize that “Washington Square’s landscape is Olmstedian and that Parks is destroying it with its alien axial symmetry.”
Villager photo by Q. Sakamaki

By Lincoln Anderson
Folk singers strummed and warbled ballads against it. Local politicians - not one but four - testified against it. The Fine Arts Federation of New York stated it was opposed to the idea. Disabled advocates in wheelchairs angrily said they were being used as “pawns” - and not to do it in their name. And most of the people offering testimony during four hours of hearings on Monday said they didn't want the Washington Square Park fountain moved 22 feet to the east. But that didn't matter to the Art Commission, which voted to approve the shifting of the fountain, as well as the park's two statues, as part of the Parks Department's $16 million renovation project.
In doing do, they sealed the park's fate, meaning it will change from its historic Olmstedian design of curved pathways to a more formalistic, symmetrical Beaux Arts layout. And coming with the change to a more regimented look will probably be a parallel change in the use of the traditionally freewheeling park - though the Parks Department is avoiding saying that. Nine high-powered water jets in the fountain will make it hard to perform there.
After hearing the copious testimony, the commission took one hour to deliberate and vote on the three issues.

By votes of 10 yes and 1 no they approved moving the Giuseppe Garibaldi and Alexander Lyman Holley statues to the northern areas of the ovals they currently occupy on the park's central east-west pathway. Their vote on the fountain was unanimous. In his presentation of the plan, John Krawchuk, Parks director of historic preservation, said relocating the fountain would be a stunning improvement. Lining up fountain and arch would “enrich the view of the arch and invite people into the park,” he said. “It is a great civic gesture. Keeping the fountain hidden behind the arch is an intellectual nuance that will be seen as a missed opportunity by future generations.”
Just as at the numerous public meetings held before on the renovation, the overwhelming public sentiment at the Art Commission hearing was once again against the plan. State Senator Tom Duane testified against moving the fountain. Duane also said he supports keeping the fountain and sunken central plaza at their current elevation, though the latter was not within the purview of the Art Commission to decide, having been previously approved by the Landmarks Preservation Commission. Calling the fountain relocation “unnecessary,” Duane said, “While I understand the desire for symmetry between the fountain and the arch, Greenwich Village thrives precisely because its geography is not beholden to grids and symmetry. A park serving and representing our eccentric and eclectic neighborhood does not need perfect alignment.”
His remarks drew cheers and applause from the partisan crowd. Councilmember Alan Gerson deferred to the Art Commission on whether to move the fountain, noting this was part of the agreement he and Councilmember Christine Quinn crafted with the Parks Department in which Parks made commitments on other aspects of the renovation. Yet, Gerson added, “My personal view is that the fountain should stay where it's been my whole life. There's something discomfiting to me about having children in bathing suits playing in the fountain in the line of sight of one of our major arteries.”
Again, there were cheers. New Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer and Assemblymember Deborah Glick also issued statements against moving the fountain. However, Kate Seely-Kirk, legislative aide to Quinn, the new Council speaker, read Quinn's statement, which, like Gerson, deferred to the Art Commission's judgment on moving the fountain. Except, Quinn didn't offer her personal view on the issue. “Boo!” hooted one woman in the audience. “Chris wimped!” Melissa Baldock, director of preservation from the Greenwich Village Society of Historic Preservation, read the society's statement in support of moving the fountain and statues.
“We see no reason to reject the location of these elements,” she said. A member of the opposition pointedly filmed Baldock with a handheld minicamera as she departed after testifying. Keen Berger, Greenwich Village Democratic district leader, noted her late husband Martin Berger 40 years ago defended the right of a mandolin player to perform in the park. Her voice rising to a shout, Berger implored, “The park is a living place - don't let them kill it!” However, weighing in in support of the move was Ric Bell, executive director of the American Institute of Architects, who called it the obvious thing to do. On the other hand, Tomas Rossant of the Fine Arts Federation of New York said the organization “opposes the relocation of the fountain and sees no reason why a progressive design can't be done with the fountain in place. This redesign privileges Beaux Arts axial symmetry over real history,” he said.
While the mayor appoints all 11 members of the Art Commission, a majority of the commissioners, seven, are selected from a list from the Fine Arts Federation of New York. Last year the federation wrote to the Art Commission expressing their objection to moving the fountain. Ronald Podolsky, attorney on a community lawsuit set to be filed once the project is ready to start, protested that he filed a Freedom of Information Law request to see the updated park redesign plan, but was only notified it was available for viewing the Friday before the hearing. “It is well known that straight lines are the lines of duty, curved lines are the lines of beauty,” Podolsky noted, knocking the redesign. However, broadening the debate, a speaker in support of the project, asked, “Straight lines don't make art? How about the Taj Mahal?” sparking some laughter. Sharon Woolums, a leader of the Emergency Coalition to Save Washington Square Park, on whose behalf Podolsky is filing the lawsuit, said the existing design from the community-driven renovation of the park led by Robert Nichols in 1969 shouldn't be changed. “Bob Nichols was also a theater director and understood how the fountain plaza would function as a theater,” Woolums said. “There is no need to change this brilliant plan. Do not destroy what works.”

Accompanying himself on guitar, Eric Levine, musical director of the Disabled in Action Singers, chose to sing his testimony: Adrian Benepe, our Park commissioner, Says stop the music and that they will do Let not a note by heard from neither man nor bird Ban the guitarists, they're Benepe's taboo We say no to Benepe's men Fight the good old fight again We are the surging mass We are worth more than grass The park's for all people - not just for N.Y.U. During a break in the testimony, Podolsky fittingly led some of the plan opponents in a round of Appalachian coal miners' songs about John L. Lewis. As testimony resumed, noting she's always been a Frisbee player, former City Councilmember Carol Greitzer said it's not a bad thing that there's lots of asphalt in the park. “To play Frisbee you need a lot of payment.

No one's mentioned that.” The actual use of the fountain once the park is renovated was a concern of the commissioners, most notably Byron Kim. Specifically, Kim and a few others voiced trepidations about the plan for a powerful 45-foot-high water plume and eight arcing side water jets in the fountain, wondering how this would mesh with the fountain's current use as a performance space for acrobats and musicians, or even merely as a place to sit and relax. Just the sound of this water display might discourage musicians from jamming nearby, Kim and some of his colleagues opined. They asked the Parks officials if any noise studies of the fountain had been done yet, to which Parks responded that they had not. “The splash factor,” Kim said. “Will it make it difficult for people to sit on the fountain? If you have a lot of water jets will people be able to hear each other talk?”
Art Commission member Otis Pratt Pearsall said the noisy fountain was “a huge issue that needs to be addressed.” Krawchuk said that musicians can ask a park attendant to adjust the fountain, controls for which will be located near the park house. “It'll all be digitized and electronic,” he assured. “I think that this will not be an issue for park users. Certainly, if we feel that noise is an issue, we can adjust the jets accordingly.”
He said the fountain would operate from April to November. Bill Castro, Manhattan borough Parks commissioner, said, in fact, most impromptu performances happen throughout the park, not in the fountain. Castro said time could be carved out for performances in the fountain when the water will be turned off. But larger performances will need to get permits, he said. The commission nixed the Parks plan to add a set of eight shiny pink granite urns atop the fountain's piers mirroring historic urns that were on the fountain before it was moved from 59th St. and Fifth Ave. to its present location around 1870.
The urns could be seen as a deterrent to the use of the fountain as an active performance space and could become large ornate ashtrays, commissioners said. The commission instead approved for the piers to be topped with new bluestone caps. There were issues with turning the Garibaldi statue to face southward. Parks said this would allow for better sunlight on the monument. However, a representative of the Garibaldi Museum said for the statute to face west showed how Garibaldi - Italy's equivalent of George Washington - was a man of both the Old and New World. But Amy Freitag, Parks director of capital planning, said by turning him south he would be looking at the historic Italian South Village. Where both statues are now is an impediment to people walking on the pathway, plus the Holley monument gets doused with dog urine since it's near the dog run, so it's best to move them, Parks said. These opened-up oval areas will also be improved as performance spaces, Parks officials said.
The use of the fountain for cooling off in hot weather and for a children's play area will also apparently come to an end with the renovation. The fountain was converted to a water-play feature for neighborhood children in 1934 with water jets spurting out of the eight fountain piers. The central fountain plume was installed in 1970. However, to meet the new code put in place after a drought a few years ago, in the renovation, the fountain's system will be changed to use recycled water, or water that keeps recirculating through it, as opposed to waste water, or water that goes down the drain into the sewer. Any fountain that uses more than 2,000 gallons of water a day must conform to the new code. The Washington Square fountain will use more than 2,000 gallons of water an hour, Parks Commissioner Adrian Benepe said.
As for use of the fountain by buskers and children, Freitag said, “Having people in the basin when it's dry is certainly something we'd like to explore. And we'll explore use of a [handicapped-accessible] temporary ramp [into the fountain]…. [But] our policy doesn't allow people to play in our fountains.” The restored fountain will continue to have three steps inside as it currently does. After the lengthy testimony, the commission first discussed and voted on the statues and urns. Signe Nielsen, a landscape architect member of the Art Commission, felt that since the fountain relocation had been the only thing the public had testified about, the commissioners were obligated to discuss it a bit. Alice Aycock, an artist member of the commission, said the fountain had always seemed “in no-man's land” to her: “It's neither here nor there. It's just uhhh.” Another commissioner said it was time for “a rebirth of the park” and a blotting out of any memory of how cars used to run through the park until they were banned in 1963. The plaza and north-south central pathway are roughly in the same spot where roads once ran through the park.
James Stuckey, a commissioner who said he plays 10 musical instruments, said the loss of the sunken plaza won't affect acoustics one bit. During discussion of the fact that a plaque to the Tisch family - who have given $2.5 million for the fountain's renovation - will be affixed to the new fountain, Aycock said perhaps another plaque should be added to acknowledge the famous musicians, like Bob Dylan, who got their start playing around the fountain - “so that it just not ignore that.” After the vote, ECO's Woolums angrily called it “a rubber stamp for the mayor's office. The Fine Arts Federation voted against it,” she noted. However, even the Fine Arts Federation's Roussant had predicted Parks would prevail. “There's too much behind this. Parks is really pushing for it,” he had said. Said Commissioner Benepe afterwards, “We're very pleased with the decision. Also, very happy with the fact that people care very deeply about parks. This was further evidence that New Yorkers care deeply about parks and are passionate about them.” The project should begin this spring or summer, he said. He said Parks will work on the issues of the water plume and jets. During her remarks one woman slammed New York University, accusing, “N.Y.U., which has kept a low profile in all this, is the main gainer, getting a symmetrical, clutter-free space for its graduation ceremonies. What a sorry fate that would be for this most individualistic spirited of parks.”
Yet, some of the project's opponents noted a significant absence at the hearing - no representative from New York University seemed to be present. N.Y.U. spokespersons did not return a call for comment by press time as to why the university did not present testimony or even appear to have an official at the hearing.
This is a letter that Bob wrote in 2006 to The Villager:
To The Editor:
Re “Plaza size matters; judge extends order blocking Wash. Sq. project” (news article, May 24):
I was heartened by the news reported in The Villager two weeks ago of the community’s continuing resistance to the planned reconstruction of Washington Square Park. I haven’t kept up with the legal details or followed recent arguments as to the plaza’s size, but I have to smile at the purported cost of the dramatic deconstruction process, when the actual solution is really so simple and inexpensive. As I explained in The Villager before, the basic failure has been the refusal — perhaps recalcitrance or just plain ignorance — of Parks in maintaining the park. The present Parks Department is not altogether at fault.
The original design by the Committee of Architects in 1970 comprised a number of original elements, park furniture such as the circular benches at the corner entrances and some trees. These were nonstandard and required maintenance procedures unfamiliar to the Parks maintenance crew. They required special supervision and attention. We, the designers, and our sponsors, members of the Greenwich Village Community Association, did not see this as crucial. There was no watch committee to follow up on it or see that the engineering drawings and specifications were forwarded from the engineering firm to the Arsenal in case adjustments were needed.
An example are the trees in the raised sitting walls around the edge of the plaza. A crucial element, why have they not received the same attention to keep them healthy that they would have received on any college campus? The trees need nourishment, the soil needs water and air. It breaks my heart to see them. Years have gone by. While the political and legal battles continue, at the same time this might have been attended to. Nobody has thought to do such a simple thing. Or is it a question of calculated neglect?
The legal and bureaucratic answer is, of course: We have no money. No money for maintenance, only for capital improvement. And so, the park wrecked as $16 million “capital improvement.” Hilarious!

Robert Nichols,
Nichols was a member of the Greenwich Village Architects Committee