⚓ Directory
PLAN GALLERY CLXIV
GALLERY CLXIV

The Police Power

The broadest power a city holds is the vaguest one: health, safety, morals, welfare.

Charles Horton Cooley
ON THE FLOOR
Charles Horton Cooley
Theorist designate - flagged from the theory registry (#8494)
“You learned who you are by watching what other people reflected back at you. The mirror, it turns out, was people all along.”
Edward Soja
ON THE FLOOR
Edward Soja
Theorist designate - flagged from the theory registry (#8494)
“Space is not the stage the story happens on - it is one of the actors. Ask WHERE, and half the mystery answers itself.”
George Herbert Mead
ON THE FLOOR
George Herbert Mead
Theorist designate - flagged from the theory registry (#8494)
“The self is a conversation: the I speaking, the Me listening with everyone else's ears. You rehearse society every time you think.”
The Board of Health Placard
A printed card, about the size of a sheet of letter paper, pasted to a front door: the name of a disease in heavy type, and below it the words 'by order of the Board of Health'. Nobody in the house put it there.
The Zoning Resolution Broadside
A large printed sheet folded to fit a coat pocket: three maps of the same city in coloured districts, and columns of small type that say what may be built where. Dated July 25, 1916.
The Police Captain's Log
A thick ledger bound in cloth, its corners soft with use, lying open on a station-house desk. Each line is a night: the hour, a name, a street, and what was done about it.
The Tweed Certificate
A printed county warrant on heavy paper, an engraved border, a sum written in ink and a signature at the foot. It authorises payment from the public treasury for work on the new county courthouse.
The Tammany Receipt
A small printed slip, half the size of a postcard, acknowledging a 'voluntary contribution' from a city employee to the organisation. The amount is a fixed share of his salary.
The Municipal Prospectus
A slim printed pamphlet offering the city's bonds for sale: the sum sought, the interest promised, the works to be built, and a page of figures on the city's population, taxes and debt.
The Alley Photograph
A narrow yard between two tenement walls, boys lined against the brick, washing overhead. The caption a reformer gave the picture - 'candidates for crime' - is printed as if it were a fact.
The Burned Court House
A shell of stone with the roof gone and the windows empty, photographed within days of the fire. This was the seat of the city's government.
The Mask Order in the Street
A street-car conductor in a gauze mask turning a passenger away; the passenger has none. Seattle, autumn 1918, the same weeks San Francisco wrote its mask ordinance.
The No-Trespassing Sign
A fence, a printed sign, and behind it tents and vehicles under a freeway. The sign is the city's; the tents are not.
The Ring Arithmetic
A blackboard, a sum that does not add up, and the men of the Tweed Ring teaching it. A cartoon that argued with numbers.
Tammany Hall, 14th Street
A four-storey building with a wide entrance and a name across the front, on a street of shops and street-cars. From here the city's jobs were given out.
The Tweed Courthouse
A marble courthouse behind City Hall, columned and domed, still in use. It is the building the Tweed certificates paid for - many times over.
The Naturalization Scene
A crowded room, a judge at a table, men in line with papers in their hands. Citizens are being made, by the dozen, on the eve of an election.
PS5-046 · The Police Power — Open the drawer
The broadest power a city holds is the vaguest one: health, safety, morals, welfare.
PS5-047 · The Police Power — What is this thing?
The broadest power a city holds is the vaguest one: health, safety, morals, welfare.
PS5-048 · The Police Power — Read the source
The broadest power a city holds is the vaguest one: health, safety, morals, welfare.
PS5-049 · The Police Power — Map it / time it
The broadest power a city holds is the vaguest one: health, safety, morals, welfare.
PS5-050 · The Police Power — Two sources disagree
The broadest power a city holds is the vaguest one: health, safety, morals, welfare.
PS5-051 · The Police Power — State the claim
The broadest power a city holds is the vaguest one: health, safety, morals, welfare.
PS5-052 · The Police Power — Take the other side
The broadest power a city holds is the vaguest one: health, safety, morals, welfare.
PS5-053 · The Police Power — Weigh it
The broadest power a city holds is the vaguest one: health, safety, morals, welfare.
PS5-054 · The Police Power — Build the answer
The broadest power a city holds is the vaguest one: health, safety, morals, welfare.
PS5-055 · The Police Power — For the file
The broadest power a city holds is the vaguest one: health, safety, morals, welfare.
PS5-056 · The Police Power — Go and look
The broadest power a city holds is the vaguest one: health, safety, morals, welfare.
PS5-057 · The Police Power — Now, today
The broadest power a city holds is the vaguest one: health, safety, morals, welfare.
PS5-058 · The Police Power — Teach it back
The broadest power a city holds is the vaguest one: health, safety, morals, welfare.
PS5-059 · The Police Power — The other place
The broadest power a city holds is the vaguest one: health, safety, morals, welfare.
PS5-060 · The Police Power — One object, close
The broadest power a city holds is the vaguest one: health, safety, morals, welfare.
🎧 A moment to consider
What will you carry out of this room?
← EXIT TO
Gallery CLXIII · The Bond Issue
EXIT TO →
Gallery CLXV · The Annexation Fight
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Galleries
IFire and the Forest IIThe First Surplus IIIWater and Power IVThe Domesticated Animal VThe First Village VIThe Metal That Mattered VIIThe Grain Empire VIIIRoads and Rivers IXThe Silk Corridor XThe Monsoon Bargain XIWhy Rome Thinned XIIThe Classical City XIIIThe Maize Bargain XIVTerrace and Milpa XVThe City in the Lake XVIThe Classic Maya Question XVIIReading the Sky XVIIIA Hemisphere Without Horses XIXThe Heavy Plough XXThe Black Death XXIThe Caravan World XXIIThe Rice Revolution XXIIIWood and the Wall XXIVThe Little Ice Age XXVThe Columbian Exchange XXVIThe Sugar Island XXVIIThe Silver Mountain XXVIIIThe Wind That Made Empires XXIXFur, Fish and Frontier XXXThe First Global City XXXIThe Walking City XXXIICoal and the Clock XXXIIIGoing Up Rural Businesses XXXIVThe Cooled Room The Gerrymander The Income Pyramid XXXVThe New Mills XXXVIThe Company and the Charter XXXVIIThe Meeting Ground XXXVIIIThe Company Town XXXIXThe Town and the Common XLThe Invisible Arrival XLIThe Consumer Revolution XLIIThe Argument in Print XLIIIWho Was the Revolution For? XLIVThe Machine of Compromise XLVThe Grid Goes West XLVIThe Port City XLVIIThe War Itself XLVIIIThe First Party Fight XLIXRemoval LThe Factory Girls LIThe House Divided LIIReconstruction and Its Undoing LIIIThe Chosen Nation LIVThe Tenement and the Terrace LVThe Immigrant Ledger LVIThe Machine and the Ward LVIIWhy Buildings Rise LVIIIThe Reservation and the Allotment LIXThe Federal Blueprint LXThe Arsenal LXIThe Subsidised Suburb LXIIThe Second Great Migration LXIIIThe Movement in the Street LXIVThe Bomb LXVThe Factory Closes LXVIThe Return Downtown LXVIIThe Sunbelt Bargain LXVIIIThe Worked Continent LXIXThe Hero and the Record LXXThe Reform Photograph LXXIThe Great Upheaval LXXIIThe Cotton Engine LXXIIIThe Corps of Discovery LXXIVThe Republican Experiment LXXVWho Counts? LXXVIThe Canal and the Rail LXXVIIThe Edsel LXXVIIIThe Transcontinental LXXIXThe Crash and the Line LXXXThe Census LXXXIThe Tower Again LXXXIIThe Screen and the Square LXXXIIIThe Literary Digest Poll LXXXIVUrban Renewal LXXXVThe Hardening Line LXXXVIThe Population Bomb LXXXVIINew Coke LXXXVIIIGalloping Gertie LXXXIXThe Question XCThe Index XCIThe Map XCIIThe Poverty Line XCIIIThe Normal XCIVThe Hawthorne Works XCVProhibition XCVIMoving to Opportunity XCVIIThe Obedience Studies XCVIIIThe Minimum Wage Fight XCIXAfter the Towers CThe Sword Rack at the Door CIThe First Light CIIThe Forge of Stars CIIIThe Rocky Ledger CIVThe Goldilocks Band CVThe Moon's Receipt CVIThe Deep Clock CVIIThe Living Spark CVIIIThe Oxygen Revolution CIXThe Drifting Map CXThe Great Dyings CXIThe Mammal's Wager CXIIThe Grasslands Bargain CXIIIThe Fire Keeper CXIVThe Language Leap CXVThe Painted Cave CXVIThe Long Migration CXVIIThe Dog at the Fire CXVIIIThe Ice Corridor CXIXThe Seed Contract CXXThe Village Ledger CXXIThe Writing Debt CXXIIThe City Threshold CXXIIIThe Metal and the Market CXXIVThe Plague Network CXXVThe Ocean Bridge CXXVIThe Silver Circuit CXXVIIThe Machine Threshold CXXVIIIThe Energy Bonanza CXXIXThe Population Curve CXXXThe Telegraph World CXXXIThe Great Acceleration CXXXIIThe Carbon Ledger CXXXIIIThe Information Threshold CXXXIVThe Genome Drawer CXXXVThe Anthropocene Question CXXXVIThe Next Threshold CXXXVIIThe Town Meeting CXXXVIIIThe Common and the Fence CXXXIXThe Sheriff and the Jury CXLThe School Board CXLIThe Charter CXLIIThe Petition CXLIIIThe Property Line CXLIVThe Ballot Box CXLVThe Ward Machine CXLVIThe Suffrage March CXLVIIThe Poll Tax Receipt CXLVIIIThe Recount CXLIXThe King's Two Bodies CLThe Parliament CLIThe Republic's Blueprint CLIIThe Federation Question CLIIIThe One-Party State CLIVThe Referendum CLVMarbury's Desk CLVIThe Fourteenth Amendment CLVIISeparate and Unequal CLVIIIThe Warren Bench CLIXThe Commerce Clause CLXThe Dissent CLXIThe Zoning Map CLXIIThe Boss's Ledger CLXIIIThe Bond Issue CLXIVThe Police Power ◄ YOU ARE HERE CLXVThe Annexation Fight CLXVIThe Renewal Bulldozer CLXVIIThe Treaty Table CLXVIIIThe Embassy CLXIXThe Blockade CLXXThe Alliance CLXXIThe Assembly Floor CLXXIIThe Trade War CLXXIIIThe Question-Mark Tracks Emblematic Films — The Decade Panels The Government Lounge Rogues, Ruffians, and Rascals The Processing Hall — The Dairy Wing The Creamery — The Second Wing The Civil Rights Movement 1945–1975 The American Indian The Gallery of Man The Sobering Rooms The Teaching Ward The Pharmacology Cabinet The Pathology Gallery The Epidemiology Map Room
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