[Bobby Williams]
As you may have noticed, it was St. Patrick's Day/Weekend this past, uh, weekend. Most people we talked with talked didn't think the weekend got out of hand as perhaps anticipated. At least by SantaCon standards.
It wasn't incident free, as this photo by the post office on East 11th Street and Fourth Avenue shows...
[Photo by @gradydunning]
And we have no idea what happened here on St. Mark's Place. Likely had nothing to do with St. Patrick's Day. But there is a guy with a green shirt standing there!
[Photo by @Knickerbock4Lif]
And a few photos via Scoboco's Flickr account, where you can find more East Village shots here.
Some readers have already left their observations here. Please leave any additional St. Patrick's Day thoughts in the comments below.
16 comments:
The photo opp that got away:
Time: Yesterday at around 1pm. Location: East Third Street. The Visual: Ratty, water- (and possibly other-substance-) soaked green Jameson's sweatshirt crumpled in the middle of the sidewalk. Leashed doggie in his own sweatshirt lifts leg and pees all over it. Alas, couldn't get cameraphone out fast enuf.
Praise be the crappy weather!
Well, I mean what could be more Irish than dressing in green, drinking a lot and fighting, isn't that the pinnacle of Irish culture?
Yeah seriously.
I remember last year St Pats was a beautiful day. I went to a roof party on the UES, but I can only imagine what it was like down in the EV. I imagine the wintery mix took a lot of the wind out of the sails.
Ugh! Santacon can get unpleasant but these pictures make St. Patty's Day look much worse to me.
Anyway, I do hear that people are now completely weary of public gatherings. The thing is, how do we go about fixing the problem? Do we try to supervise or rein-in the bad behavior while inspiring good behavior, or do we just ban as many public gatherings as we can get away with?
I was telling some adults (born well before 1970) the other day that CB6 is now drafting default stipulations that include a blanket ban on bar crawls. The response was... disapproving, to put it politely. "Hey, we had bar crawls all the time in college and no one ever had a problem with it!" (As I seem to recall as well) Times are indeed different today, but the appropriate political response is to lead the community, not shut down the community. Because in the end, the nasty drunks will just come back with a vengeance, unrestrained by their more responsible peers who just don't feel like dealing with the inconveniences handed to them by teetotalling activists.
And this is not so much about defending heavy drinking as to defend any civil liberties remaining in a city that has very strong community boards, a tough permit process, and strict open container violation enforcement. I can't just go to Tompkins Square Park with a six pack and a small grill and a bag of hot dogs and make a pleasant day of it. Take out the six pack and it's still illegal. We lack freedoms here that other people in the US find cheap and easy. We've already given so much to the "shutdown" mentality and there has to be a boundary somewhere, a boundary that shouldn't move just because an uptight person saw someone screaming "Woooooo!" once.
THANK YOU SOOO MUCH BRIAN VAN!!!!! I THOUGHT I WAS THE ONLY ONE WHO FELT THAT WAY!!!! YOU ARE SOOOOO RIGHT!!!! THANK YOU!!!!! 100%!!!!
I saw a young man throwing up at 5 in the afternoon outside the backdoor of the Cafe Wha? on Minetta Street yesterday. The whole thing is baffling, but then I abhor organized fun.
I was amazed how relatively subdued it was on Saturday. Some of the bars were really full, but other than that, just lots of people in ugly clothing (not too different than EV on most days).
And then yesterday was actually disappointing in how quiet things were. It was like any other EV Sunday afternoon, except with the random person wearing green. I like my St. Patrick's Day to have a little bit of drunken belligerence, otherwise it has lost all of its (American) meaning.
Brian.
You need to move to the suburbs. What you are describing is exactly what the burbs are for. It's what makes them great.
What you are describing really doesn't fly in environments like London, Rome, New York, Paris.
Also, your use of the term "public gathering" is meaningless. It's way to general a term.
I wasn't out too much during the weekend. On Saturday afternoon I went to the New Museum... afterwards, I walked a bit on Orchard Street. I did see a woman (presumably really drunk) in her 20s — wearing all the plastic St. Patrick's Day freebies — looking north trying to hail a cab.
The traffic on Orchard was coming from the south, of course. I wondered how long it would take her to turn around.
Sleeping with Brian Van now are we?
How is it that you censor rebuttals to Brian Van's offensive comments but you keep publishing Brian Van's arrogant comments?
@ anon 4:14
The comment left at 1:26 that tells him to move to the suburbs is a rebuttal to his statement.
I love how Bloomberg wants to limit access to sugary sodas and now cigarettes, but there's no legislation in place for the obscene pub crawls that happen on St. Patrick's Day and the dreaded fucking Santacon. I agree, cigarettes and sugary soda is bad for you, everybody knows that, but if people want to destroy their bodies with it who's to say that they can't? It's a personal choice that's not hurting anybody but the individual that decides to partake in either of these things.
Pub crawls on the other hand are disruptive to the public at large and unsanitary. Doesn't anybody at City Hall fucking see that? Persons puking in the streets during pub crawls should be prosecuted and fined, period! People that puke on the sidewalk don't clean it up as I'm sure all of you have noticed. How about they just take a shit in the street and leave it there? Goddam! Dog owners have to clean up after their pets or else there's a fine. Why shouldn't it be the same for humans who unlike dogs have other options when it comes to bodily eliminations. New York City is not a fraternity piss and shit-hole, people LIVE here, and their really needs to be restrictions on these events.
Just for the record:
St. Patrick's Day isn't a fun day for my family. Tragic event happened about 40 years ago on this holiday. I wasn't alive for it but it's the sort of thing where my dad didn't quite feel the need to spend all day at a bar.
Also, I'm not thrilled with the boorish behavior that comes with these events and I'm interested in putting an end to it. I'm also a social drinker and an activist. I think banning liquor from a wider range of events (and vice versa) is the stupid solution.
Also, I'm not sleeping with EVGrieve. But maybe we've shared a milkshake once
I see Bull McCabe's in the photo. That place is proof you don't need it to be St Patrick's Day to have a bad time. One random time years ago, a drunken frat boyish goomba randomly targeted my friend to pick on and threaten to fight because he had to get it out of his system apparently. When my friend talked back, his little bro wall street friend jumped in and threatened to fight my friend and would not believe that his friend started anything (and furthermore declared, due to high testosterone, that he didn't care even if his friend did start it). My friend saw the little guy had an embarrassed girlfriend so he pointed out said embarrassment. The little guy just kept repeating that my friend is real tough and that he's lucky and then they walked away. I decided to never give that bar my business again after that. Of all the things to go away on St Marks, I'm sorry this place wasn't one of them.
St. Patrick's Day in NYC was always an excuse for drunken off duty fireman, cops and random other dipshits to beat the piss out of people in bars. It's kind of like their recreation time. I've avoided it since the 80s.
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