Philadelphia Weekly

It was the halcyon days of the mid-'90s. The economy was fast approaching the dot-com boom, welfare reform was putting people to work, the country wasn't at war and Monica Lewinsky wasn't yet a household name.

With the exception of an escalating homicide rate, things were pretty quiet in Philadelphia in 1997.

A little too quiet.

On a long van ride back to Philadelphia from a Boston conference for activists fighting poverty and homelessness, a group of Philly anarchists decided, "We don't fuck shit up nearly as much as we really ought to."

The rhythm of everyday life had beaten the once-thriving Philly activist scene into submission. Demonstrations had been too tame, they said. Protests had been ill attended. They needed a spark to bring everyone together, to inspire action, to mobilize.

The conversation on that van ride 10 years ago this month spawned The Defenestrator, a collectively run anarchist newspaper based in West Philadelphia that first published a few weeks later. In August the newspaper will celebrate its 10th anniversary--a major accomplishment for a community that's constantly in flux and doesn't believe in hierarchy.

"We wanted to have something that projects what people in Philly are doing outward," says Dave Onion, who was among those in the van. "And to connect the different groups of people in Philly. A lot of people didn't know each other existed."

A handful of activists met at the A-Space--the antiprofit anarchist cafe on Baltimore Avenue--and kicked around ideas. Stories were written and pages were laid out. A friend who worked at Kinko's surreptitiously printed hundreds of copies for free. When that batch ran out, the Kinko's insider printed more.

"Everything was funded through stolen supplies," says Onion, 36.

The first issue was a 16-page rallying cry, a challenge to the radical community to incite change.

"Cement those toilets ... get out those slingshots, hack those ATMs, glue those locks," the unsigned front-page editorial beckons.

There are stories about squatting in Philadelphia and the evils of McDonald's. Mumia Abu-Jamal contributed an essay. There's even a "radical calendar" of events.

They named the paper after a 15th-century revolt in Prague where the peasants "defenestrated" the ruling monarchs and church officials--they threw them out the window.

"Throwing power out the window" has been the paper's unofficial motto ever since.

The volunteer staff now operates out of the Lancaster Avenue Autonomous Zone (LAVA) in the Belmont section of West Philadelphia. They share space in the converted row home with fellow unconventional media organizations like Geoclan.com, Radio Volta and the Independent Media Center of Philadelphia.

The Defenestrator's small crimson-colored third-floor office is decorated with protest signs from various causes--workers' rights, antipolice brutality, anti-Penntrification. A few signs are in Spanish. One is in German.

Donated computer parts are everywhere, and the largest piece of furniture in the room is a bench seat from a minivan.

"I'm almost opposed to saying there are guidelines to what we'll print," says Defenestrator contributor Colin Cascia, 23. "It's good to allow some openness. We'll allow anyone who is doing things as a community or autonomously and not relying upon the police or government."