NEW YORK (AP) – Marc Ecko doesn’t want to tell Mayor Michael Bloomberg what’s art and what’s not. But the fashion designer, declaring “one man’s art is another man’s trash,” said Thursday he’s going to sue the mayor for calling off his graffiti party.

Ecko said the mayor threw out his rights to free speech by revoking a permit for an Aug. 24 block party at which artists planned to spray-paint graffiti onto replicas of subway car panels. He said he’d file a federal lawsuit on Friday to force the mayor to let him express himself.

Ecko said the block party, held to celebrate the release of a new video game he designed that features the work of several graffiti artists, “is a pop culture moment; it’s not an exhibition of criminal activity.”

On Monday, Bloomberg said that allowing artists to spray-paint subway car replicas will encourage vandalism the city has spent years trying to end.

“There is a fine line here between freedom of expression and going out and encouraging people to hurt this city,” he said.

The city revoked Ecko’s permit, first issued July 18, on Monday, saying that Ecko had not explained he was also promoting the video game, “Getting Up: Contents Under Pressure.” It invited him to reapply, but Bloomberg indicated that graffiti wouldn’t be allowed.

Ecko, speaking at a news conference at his clothing company in the Chelsea section of Manhattan, said that painting the subway replicas was intended to recall “a time that’s bygone,” when graffiti covered subway cars in the 1970s and early 1980s. He said he did not plan to encourage New Yorkers to vandalize the subways.

“I do not condone illegal activity. I’m not a provocateur,” he said. “But I can’t stand here today and say that I condone censorship.”

Ecko invited Bloomberg to take a can of spray paint and cover a subway panel with him at the block party.

“No, thanks,” Bloomberg spokesman Ed Skyler said Thursday. “The city isn’t obligated to permit an event on a public street that encourages the vandalism of subway cars in the name of selling T-shirts and video games. The courts should uphold our ability to protect New York City’s quality of life.”

The mayor’s graffiti cleanup task force has removed more than 10 million square feet of graffiti this year and more than 67 million square feet since 2002.

Ecko’s attorney, Daniel Perez, and the New York Civil Liberties Union planned a federal lawsuit saying that revoking a permit because officials don’t approve of the event violates First Amendment rights.

Perez said the mayor’s office had been aware when it issued the permit that graffiti artists would be painting the 10 48-foot-tall subway panel replicas. He said artists had signed contracts promising not to leave paint on the street, tarps had been purchased and each panel would be surrounded by a security barricade.

One of the graffiti artists, Lady Pink, said she has painted murals, with the required permits, in the city for decades without inciting New Yorkers to become vandals.

“Subways have been clean since 1989,” she said. “It’s just ignorant. They don’t know what they’re talking about.”