Learning from a Tamiment exhibit

History is not so much lost as it is forgotten. It's abundantly available on the Internet, in museums and in classes, but few of us have the time to wonder why New York's subways are named so haphazardly, or how various New York neighborhoods ended up in their current location. In one of the most historically and culturally rich cities anywhere, we walk in ignorance.

Fortunately for those who want to know more about their city, NYU's Tamiment Library will be housing a new collection by Time's Up, a direct-action environmental group intimately involved in many forms of activism in the Lower East Side over the last 20 years.

Michael Nash, Tamiment's director, recently told The New York Times, "Time's Up has, in many ways, defined the ways in which environmentalism challenges our economic, political and social system."

Founded in 1987, Time's Up originally strove to publicize the harmful effects of acid rain and pesticides. It has since branched out in several directions, cultivating community gardens and protesting for public space free of automobiles. In fact, Brooklyn Bridge Park traces its roots to a forceful Time's Up effort to convert a vacant lot into a community garden.

Time's Up is well-known for its monthly critical mass bicycle rides, where cyclists ride brazenly through Manhattan, running red lights and calling for cleaner transportation on pain of arrest. On a hyperlocal level, Time's Up has also worked with NYU's Sustainability Task Force to promote bicycle riding and recycling.

Tamiment Library was right to accept this collection of fliers, photographs and videotapes. They're the sort of local history that students would be hard-pressed to find elsewhere. The collection also echoes themes of many other activist movements.

In particular, conflict figures prominently in this history, whether with the police, developers or city agencies. In disputes over gentrification, squatters have devoted hours of sweat equity to make abandoned buildings, which others wanted to dismantle and replace, habitable. In disputes over community gardens, Time's Up volunteers have locked themselves to trees to protest their demolition. In disputes over public space, spectacles involving fire breathers and stilt walkers have been arranged to demonstrate the important role such places play in the community.

Despite their limited scope, these incidents are instructional and deserve recognition. They remind us that every struggle, whether for civil rights, labor rights, to end a war or to build a community garden, comes with conflict.

The Time's Up collection reminds us that such efforts are not only valuable personally but useful for everyone, resulting in today's bicycle lanes and pedicabs throughout New York.

As we go through our everyday lives, it's easy to forget that local history and the boundaries in New York have been in constant flux. This is true at NYU, as well.

So maybe the next time there's a Take Back NYU or graduate student protest, don't shy away from conflict. After all, these protests may represent, in some small sense, the shifting lines and boundaries that define our history and our future, as students and as a university.

Pratik Mehta is deputy opinion editor.