Kropotkin’s alley

There’s a pedestrian alley in my neighborhood that provides an important link for the low-stress version of my bike commute.

The neighborhood, built in the 1950s, has a few of them, but they don’t get much use. People don’t walk much any more. Which I guess is why someone thought it would be OK to put a fence up at both ends of my alley.

This seemed wrong.

Whoever did it went to some trouble, hiring a fence company. The one at the south end wasn’t a gate that could swing, it was bolted onto fence posts stuck in the dirt of the alley. I snapped a picture so that I could file a report with the city, then rode around the block to check it out from the other end.

There was a guy with a pickup truck from one of the companies that runs utilities down the alley on the far side. He said the fence wasn’t theirs. Then a man materialized from the building on the far side of the alley – my age, with hands and clothes suggesting he worked, and an unlit cigar in his mouth.

He agreed the fence shouldn’t be there, said the fiber optic crews who have been swarming our neighborhood had put it up, but it’s a public right of way, they built it in the 1950s so people could get from the neighborhood to the businesses on the far side of the alley.

I have a tendency to focus on governance in a situation like this – to study municipal maps to determine whether it is a public right of way. To call the fence company or file a complaint with the city.

Cigar Guy’s approach was more direct. He started yanking at the fence, disappeared for a minute and came back with wire cutters, snipping away the loops holding it in place. Pickup Truck Guy joined in, helping haul the fence out of the way.

We walked down the alley to the other end. The gate was bolted in place, not amenable to wire cutters. But the posts weren’t deep, so we pulled them out and reopened the right of way.

The anarchist toolkit

Cigar Guy had wire cutters. This is important by way of metaphor, but also because the fence was being held in place with wire that needed to be cut in order for us to reclaim the commons – in this case, an alley.

As a student of government, I tend to focus on rules and process and the nature and structure of institutions. The lesson from Cigar Guy is that sometimes you just need wire cutters.