The milk crate was stolen from behind the grocery store and it became a chair. Every stoop on the Lower East Side had a milk crate and the milk crate was the throne of the man who sat on it. The throne was made of white plastic and it said PROPERTY OF on the side and the property of did not matter because possession is the law of the street. The milk crate throne was the seat of power on every block.

You could stack the milk crates. Two high was a chair. Three high was a table. Four high was a shelf. The milk crate was the most versatile piece of furniture in the city and it was free and it was stolen and nobody felt bad about stealing it because the dairy company had plenty. The milk crate economy was a redistribution of plastic from the people who had too much to the people who had not enough.

The man on the milk crate saw everything. He saw who came home late. He saw who came home with who. He saw the mail carrier and the UPS truck and the police car that slowed down but did not stop. The milk crate throne was a surveillance post disguised as leisure. The man on the milk crate was not sitting. He was governing. Every block had a mayor and the mayor sat on a milk crate.

I had a milk crate in front of my building on East Seventh Street and I kept my records in it when I was not sitting on it. The milk crate held exactly the right number of records for a gig. You carried it by the handle and it was a record case and when you got where you were going you turned it upside down and it was a seat. The milk crate was two things at once. Everything on the Lower East Side was two things at once.

The dairies started chaining the crates. Then they started fining stores that did not return them. Then they started making the crates a different shape so they would not stack right. The dairy industry spent millions of dollars trying to stop poor people from having furniture. The milk crate is still on the street. You cannot kill a good idea with a chain. The milk crate survived corporate America. That is the highest compliment you can pay a piece of plastic.

See also: Domino Table, Block Party