The razor wire was on top of every fence on the Lower East Side and it said do not climb this fence. That was the message. Simple. The chain-link fence was a suggestion. The razor wire was a promise. You could climb a chain-link fence. Everybody climbed chain-link fences. But you stopped at the razor wire because the razor wire would cut you and it did not care who you were or why you were climbing. The razor wire was the most honest boundary in the city.

The empty lots had razor wire. The parking lots had razor wire. The construction sites had razor wire. The backs of buildings that faced the alley had razor wire. If you walked down any block on the Lower East Side in 1970 you saw more razor wire than window boxes. The razor wire was a census of what the neighborhood valued. It did not protect beautiful things. It protected nothing. Empty lots with garbage and broken glass and a fence with razor wire on top protecting it from people who did not want to be in there anyway.

The kids on Avenue D made a game of the razor wire. They threw shoes at it to see if they would catch. The shoes always caught. That is why there were sneakers hanging from every wire and fence and telephone line on the block. Some people said the sneakers meant drugs. The sneakers meant kids were bored and the razor wire was there and shoes are free ammunition when you outgrow them. Not everything is a code. Sometimes a sneaker on a wire is just a sneaker on a wire.

I cut my hand on razor wire trying to get into a lot on East Third Street where somebody told me there was a guitar amp somebody threw away. There was no guitar amp. There was a washing machine with no door and a shopping cart with three wheels and a sofa that the rain had turned into a sponge. I bled on the sidewalk walking home and a man outside the bodega gave me a napkin and said the lot has been empty for six years and people still climb that fence. The razor wire does not work. It just makes the climbing hurt.

The razor wire is still there but it is decorative now. The new buildings in Bushwick have razor wire on the fences as an aesthetic. Industrial chic. The thing that kept people out is now the thing that sells the building. The razor wire that cut my hand on East Third Street was protecting garbage. The razor wire in Bushwick is protecting a courtyard with a fire pit and succulent planters. Same wire. Different city. The razor wire does not know the difference. It cuts whatever touches it. That has always been its only principle.