The average citizen is numbed by a deepening proclivity towards misapplication of civil power, from lofty congressional subpoenas to lowly traffic tickets, the disconcertion of being inhaled by government's strident, foreboding apparatus terrifies ordinary people, with classic justification. Agents, inspectors, inquisitors, enforcers, judges - a seemingly omnipotent array of stoneface officials proliferates to growth industry proportions. Even the once friendly neighborhood patrolman now erects arbitrary street barricades, nets groups of citizens at random, sniffs their breath, ransacks their property, grills them on the spot, and can, without due process, impound property that took years of hard work to acquire - measures once associated with martial law; albeit, a demoralizing chariness for which Lincoln saw no need during the nation's most violent conflagration. Just who are the people of New York City at war with?

       The passage of every new law imposes another penalty, adds one more lash, one more sting, and another turn of the screw. To the harshest administration since Peter Stuyvesant left office, the public adapts using ancient folk wisdom, refitting old ridiculed maxims: the Law works against the ordinary citizen, mind your own business and don't get involved. In short, become invisible; the political winds will eventually shift, and the social amenities reemerge, until then, Every man for himself.

       Perhaps the unkindest cut falls on communities, paralyzed and neutralized, effaced from memory as the citizenry ducks for cover during incessant government sniping. The transformation of an enlightened, urbane city culture into a grim war zone sends shivers through some neighborhoods, perhaps by clandestine design.

       In Forest Hills, thirty-five acres on Forest Park have been in contention since the Republican administration's inauguration. The land, engulfed by block after block of private homes, is old factory space in need of new purpose which the community wants a role in determining, but the administration declared, "as of right" for shopping mall space, and ceded, after the largest lobbying campaign in the city's history, to Home Depot, America's most notorious neighbor.

       As the project progressed, so did seething discontent; the community favored development related to Forest Park; ideally, sports, museum or education space. Over the past eighteen months, in the shadow of Home Depot's sterile skeletal outline rising on polluted soil, police activity has reached alarming proportions; street barricades, which locals have repeatedly encountered, are quite common. And yet, despite an overwhelming police presence, a senior walking with the aid of a cane, was recently mugged at noon on busy Metropolitan Avenue by juvenile thieves on bicycles; someone has been accosting women on the street, fondling their breasts then rushing away, also a youthful bicycling offender. The bellicose street crusade against crime seems to work much better in the newspapers then in the real world. Crime and injustice are unfortunate manifestations of man's brutish nature - they have always existed, and always shall.

       Does prudence justify living in a perpetual state of siege? How large a role does civilizing our youth play in lowering future crime rates? Are we on the right track with the Guardian Angels as the mayor's prime program initiative for teens? (And, his Machiavellian use of this pseudo military force around the Home Depot construction site, ostensibly to panhandle from passing motorists - but in all likelihood, as a show of force to intimidate?)

       The result of waving an iron fist at the community has achieved at least one notable end, it has dampened community ardor for social protest, and allowed construction of the megastore complex and accompanying infrastructure to proceed unimpeded, which benefits the administration, not the community.

       Just last week, legendary entertainer and native Queensite, Tony Bennett announced plans to mentor, along with fellow show business luminaries Harry Belafonte, Liza Minnelli, and Eli Wallach, a new city school for the performing arts, for which he is in search of a location. More then likely, Astoria would have been his first choice, but Home Depot just gobbled up the last large appropriate site there, also "as of right" courtesy of this administration. The good citizens of Forest Hills would have most certainly pointed out to Mr Bennett the joys associated with our fair community, the rugged beauty of Forest Park that his school would overlook and his students festoon with music and art, and how the match between we two had obviously been made in heaven, for a project in the arts lingered in our minds long before the knowledge came to light, as, we imagine, the delightful specter of gifted students treading meandering woodland paths in meditation and mirth to imbibe a love for leaning amid bucolic surroundings reminiscent of the Platonists' first Academy, had also occurred to him.

       Alas, the Home Depot dragon is devouring the dream. There will be no art students frequenting coffee houses on Metro, no student orchestras and ad hoc combos giving concerts in Forest Park, no local theaters and galleries previewing the cutting edge, nor student broadcasts, nor local film festivals, at least not in Forest Hills. We will make no mark on young hopefuls entering a life in the arts.

       For us there is only clouds of exhaust fumes, impatient drivers negotiating rivers of traffic, Metropolitan Avenue losing her innocence and charm to the chain store boys, dirty streets, high crime and vulgar surroundings all day and all night awash in transient shoppers.