A rhythmic, rocking Cradle of Liberty no more

City corrals street artists at Faneuil Hall

"This is a sad state of affairs for the city of Boston," said Gayle Gazdik, a face-painter who was told to pack up and move on. (Boston Globe Photo / Wiqan Ang)

Mayor Thomas M. Menino, upset by the drumming and chanting of street performers outside his office windows at City Hall, recently asked his staff to do something about the din. This week, city security officers descended on the plaza around nearby Faneuil Hall and imposed new restrictions on the artists who have become accustomed to entertaining the crowds on the historic site, known on tourist brochures as the Cradle of Liberty.

The officers shooed away clowns and caricature artists. They ordered music and dance acts to contain their performances to a single, small patch of brick - measuring 15 feet by 15 feet - near a stand of trees. And they erected steel crowd-control barricades in a wide swath around three sides of Faneuil Hall, to make sure the performers didn't sneak back.

The crackdown has drawn protests from performers, who are organizing and preparing to fight back legally if necessary. But city officials say they are simply enforcing long-ignored codes requiring clear fire lanes and pedestrian access in an attempt to bring some order and quiet to the plaza.

The city contends that the area around Faneuil Hall has become a circus-like free-for-all. The loud music, said officials, has prompted complaints not only from the mayor up in his fifth-floor office across the street, but also from a nearby restaurant that flanks the plaza.

Menino's spokeswoman, Dot Joyce, said the mayor did not specifically order the crackdown and that it was the work of his cabinet chief for property management, Michael Galvin.

But she said the mayor supports the intent of the enforcement sweep.

"The mayor is all for public performance, but everyone needs to be respectful of one another," Joyce said.

The performers, however, see the crackdown as an attempt to stifle their speech and creativity.

"Faneuil Hall, the center of freedom?" said Gayle Gazdik, a face-painter who was told to pack up and move Wednesday. "This is a sad state of affairs for the city of Boston."

Faneuil Hall, built in 1742, was the meeting hall where Samuel Adams and other revolutionaries led cries of protest against the imposition of taxes on the colonies by the British empire. Now a major stop on Boston's Freedom Trail, it is a symbol of liberty and independence.

In recent years, just who can do what on the plaza has been a long-simmering debate between city officials and street performers, including a flareup in 2005, which resulted in a free-speech court case and the repeal of a city law regulating street performers.

But until this week, the artists were allowed to set up and perform just about wherever they wanted, as long as they didn't block the entryways to Faneuil Hall, they said. A group of drummers calling themselves the "Bucket Boys" freely banged out rhythms on plastic barrels between the hall and neighboring Quincy Market.

An artist who calls himself "Madman with a Marker" typically set up his easel and sketched caricatures about 20 feet away, and Gazdik, whose stage name is "Pizzazz," planted her table wherever she could.

On Wednesday, they arrived to find the metal barricades and a cadre of security guards, who told them they could no longer set up in the area. Performances - including face painting and living statue acts - would now be allowed only in a small corner of the plaza.

"The cops said you have to be from this tree to this planter, and you have to take turns," Gazdik said.

On the other side of the hall near the Samuel Adams statue, an eight-person dance troupe called "Breeze Team" was also ushered into the allowable patch of the plaza. The Breeze Team founder, James Geddie, said the guards, armed with sound-level measuring devices, told them to turn down their music, and eventually told them to stop performing.

"They told us to stop because the audience was clapping too loud," Geddie said.

Joyce, the mayor's spokeswoman, said Menino didn't ask the guards to clamp down so hard, but she would not say whether he would order a relaxation of the measures. She did say the mayor, after months of enduring the dull thuds and cheers audible from mid-day through the evening every day since spring, wanted more order brought to the plaza.

"It was very loud," she said. The city received numerous complaints about the noise from a restaurant next to the plaza, Houston's, Joyce added.

The general manager of the restaurant said she was pleased that the boisterous performances had been toned down, though she said she didn't want the artists cleared away.

"When it's nice, we like to open the doors," said Jennifer Achevarria, who has managed the Faneuil Hall Houston's location for three months. "Our biggest concern is the noise level, which directly affects our paying guests and disturbs the ambience."

The ambience on the plaza yesterday was rather serene, with crowds of tourists walking quietly past, sitting on benches and snapping pictures with Samuel Adams.

A family from Virginia leaned on the metal barricade, looking at a guide and deciding what to visit next. They said they had just come from Quebec.

"They had tons of street performers," said Sarah Moore, who was visiting Boston for two days with her husband and two teenaged children. "It was awesome."

Donovan Slack can be reached at dslack@globe.com.