‘Club Med on the Hudson’: A Look Inside Pier 57

America has to be the best place in the world to get arrested.That was this reporter’s thought after being treated yesterday to an insider’s tour of the Police Department’s system for convention-related arrests, including the processing center set up at Pier 57.The involuntary visit followed a credentialing dispute at a lunch Governor Schwarzenegger hosted for California delegates at the Planet Hollywood restaurant on Times Square.Police call the Pier 57 facility the “Post-Arrest Screening Site” or Pass. Used most recently as bus garage for the Port Authority, the building is located at the end of West 15th Street.Activists have dubbed the site, “Guantanamo on the Hudson.” During a protest at the detention center on Wednesday, demonstrators described conditions inside as “appalling and unsanitary.”Those arrested are kept in large chain-link pens that are ringed on the top with razor wire. An AIDS activist who spent a few hours in one of the cages yesterday said he thought the comparison to the American military prison camp in Cuba was a bit extreme.“They’re calling this ‘Guantanamo on the Hudson?’ It’s more like ‘Club Med on the Hudson,'” said the activist, Andrew Coamey. Mr. Coamey, who works for an AIDS housing nonprofit, Housing Works, was among 19 people arrested during a demonstration at Grand Central Station yesterday morning. He said conditions in a crowded precinct lock-up would almost certainly be worse than those at Pier 57. Besides, Mr. Coamey said, those who intend to be arrested should expect to endure a bit of discomfort for their cause.“It’s not supposed to be nice,” said the activist, who was clad in a black T-shirt that read, “Fight Aids Not Iraq.”Some protesters complained that they developed skin rashes after sleeping on oil-covered floors at the center. However, the pen this reporter spent about an hour and a half in yesterday afternoon was clean. It had a couple of benches in it, bolted to the ground, probably so they couldn’t be used as weapons. A gray industrial carpet covered most of the concrete floor. The activists said the carpets went in after the complaints.A spring water dispenser is accessible through one corner of the pen. Each pen also contains two portable toilets for the use of arrestees.There have also been claims that the holding facility is contaminated with asbestos. The Police Department said that tests have shown no contamination. Even in the midday sun yesterday, the former bus depot, which is about three stories high and largely open from floor to ceiling, was cool and relatively comfortable.Despite the controversy over conditions at the center, none of the four officers who drove this reporter there from Midtown yesterday knew exactly where it was located. They had to place several radio calls and grew frustrated after being told by dispatchers only that the processing site was somewhere on the West Side.Some of the officers said they were glad to get a look at the center, which they had not seen before. However, one said he was less than thrilled to be stuck on duty after working a series of shifts of more than 12 hours.The Pier 57 center is set up with a series of stations, much like an assembly line. As soon as prisoners arrive, each of them is photographed three times. The Polaroids are like traditional mug shots, except that the arresting officer joins the prisoner in the photo. The officer is allowed to keep one of the pictures, presumably to help jog his memory for any future court appearance. At this point, some basic information, like name and age, is taken down by an officer with a clipboard. The form used also contains a space to note if the prisoner is suffering from any obvious medical problems.At the next station, prisoners’ personal property is examined for weapons and other items of interest. Viewed by the construction-site work lamps strung from the ceiling, almost any item can draw suspicion. In my case, an expired membership card from the Foreign Correspondents Club of China and some other old press credentials led a few of the officers to conclude that I must be a true international man of mystery. I was asked to read from my notebook, which one officer thought was in a foreign language. My penmanship has never been great but I assured them it was English.My suggestion that someone intent on causing trouble in the streets would probably not be carrying an expensive Macintosh laptop was ignored. The officers seemed more interested in the “Arab-American Republican” button I had acquired at a panel discussion on Wednesday.Eventually, my well-worn passport was flipped through. When one officer came across a visa for Pakistan, he was sure he’d hit pay dirt.“This is all going over to intel. They’re going to take a look at it,” he declared.Everything was dumped into a clear plastic bag, save for my wallet, my cash and my hotel room key.Next stop: the full body search. While I was greeted by an unhappy looking officer wearing two blue rubber gloves, the pat-down was only a trifle more intimate than one gets at the airport these days. Thankfully, I was not led to one of the few white-draped carrels nearby that had a vaguely medical look. The handcuffs, which were beginning to grate a bit, came off at this point, which was a relief. I was also allowed to keep my belt and my necktie,two items that are confiscated at most jails.From here, I was escorted into one of the holding pens while the higher-ups sorted out what to do with me. Only two men, from the AIDS protest group, shared the cage with me.My fellow prisoners and I chuckled at the courtesy of the “Caution: Razor Wire Don’t Touch” signs that the police had posted as a warning to any exceptionally stupid protesters who landed in the pens.“I’m glad they have the sign because I was about to grab it,” joked one of my pen-mates, Kenneth Robinson of Housing Works. The activists were soon escorted out. They said they thought they were headed to the Police Department’s central booking office and the Manhattan jail known as “the Tombs.”I didn’t sit alone for long before the police decided to spring me. During my two-hour stay, most of the officers were friendly. Others were a bit gruff. Of course, it’s also likely that a polite prisoner wearing a suit and cufflinks gets a bit nicer treatment than a combative anarchist wearing a vulgar T-shirt.As they escorted me out, we bantered about the accommodations.“What do you think of the carpet? Do you like the color?” a deputy police commissioner, Stephen Hammerman, asked. “I was thinking yellow might be better.”“Yellow would show dirt,” one of his colleagues pointed out.This will probably be the last time the police get to decorate Pier 57, which has an attractive art deco facade facing the Hudson River and is considered a historic landmark. Plans are in the works to turn it into a performing arts center or a marine museum.

‘Club Med on the Hudson’: A Look Inside Pier 57

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