Sunday, December 15, 2013
East Village residents share their positive experiences with SantaCon 2013
Heh. Ok. This ol' gag. Like, you know, there weren't any positive experiences...
But if you do have something positive to say about SantaCon 2013, then please do so in the comments. (And "it wasn't that bad" and "it could have been worse" don't count...)
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30 comments:
I liked seeing more bright colors in the streets. I feel like people don't wear enough colorful clothes, especially in the winter. Our streets and skies become gray, trees lose their leaves, and everybody wears dark colors to make it worse. Black, brown, 50 shades of gray.... Folks, how about some yellow, bright green, or red?
Seriously, hate Santacon overall, but I enjoyed colorful streets yesterday. Colors brighten up my day. Even orange seats on the old F train.
Positive comment - Santa Con provides the city with additional tax revenue (from sales tax)that in turn goes to fund among other things social programs. Small businesses like pizzerias, delis etc also benefit from the additional revenue.
Santacon gave me something new to bitch about, thanks guys.
@Anon 9:26
I stayed home yesterday to avoid Santa Con so I didn't contribute the sales tax revenue that I normally would have. If you factor in the extra burden on public services It's not clear that there's an aggregate increase in tax revenue. If anything, it shifts tax revenues to the bad actors (business that cater to the drunks instead of those looking to contribute to the neighborhood).
It seemed that turnouts were lower than in previous years. I went out to lunch and walked around and it wasn't that bad.
And the people participating didn't seem look like the usual moneyed post-college transients, but more like goons from out of town who are late to the party. So, I think this thing's lost some of its cool for the local bros and woo girls. This is a plus.
Positive, at least the cops were around, and the snow storm, thus making it "could've been worse" or "it wasn't that bad". And yes the colors came out -- the yellow, bright green, or red -- from the vomits.
Pharmacy chains also made a killing in sale of condoms and IUD.
And Stetzer rolling in dough as she wakes up this morning.
My positive comment is:
It's over for another year.
Here's a big benefit: http://evgrieve.com/2013/12/the-quiet-beauty-of-today-without.html#.Uq0T1239RuU.facebook
there weren't as many of them in my area as i thought. i ran into a few of them in a deli and they weren't acting like assholes.
that is all.
Why can't we get a version of this event that focuses on the best costumes and runs sober until sundown (which isn't even that late this time of year but at least buys the more sensitive people some time to get around before the crowd crush hits)? I think people who live here would actually enjoy that, even if it meant they'd duck indoors once the boozing started in earnest (which is what we do anyway on a Saturday)
Yes, it's over. One plus, West Village (where I had a reason to be) wasn't as bad as EV. Second plus, now I have a year to plan where I'd like to be next year. Venice, anyone?
The best thing about SantaCon 2013 is that it's over. Now there are 364 days until SantaCon 2014 which we can enjoy in peace.
The snowstorm definitely helped calm things down, and added a level of quiet that made it seem much tamer than in past years. Also the heavy police presence at the 12th Step and outside Nevada Smiths helped keep things calmer.
Several restaurants like the Penny Farthing and Linen Lane on 13th and 3rd Ave. had "No Santacon" signs on their front doors with bouncers to strictly enforced the door policy, severely pissing off many snow-covered SantaConners out in the cold with nowhere to go. I heard drunk one girl yelling at a bouncer that the Penny Farthing must hate Christmas, as if a giant drunken parody of St. Nick somehow honors our pagan symbol of stuff under a tree wrapped in boxes.
Yet the places that banned Santa were still full with normal people just looking for their regular Saturday night out. SantaCon probably wouldn't be seen as such a nuisance to so many local residents if it were held on a weekday when many places are empty, but then there would be no time to sleep off the hangover.
But nothing seemed to help the horrendous taxi situation as people cut each other off to get the one empty cab an hour that passed by. The snow also caused every taxi to be full, yet the busses were empty as SanatConners are apparently allergic to taking a bus that doesn't make stops in White Plains or Greenwich or Dobbs Ferry or Massapequa. So many of the obviously come in on Metro North of LIRR and the alcohol ban on the trains helped too.
New York needs more taxi hailing programs like Uber and apps to get a taxi right away, the current medallion system shows how broken it is every time there's a big event like New Years and Halloween and our favorite one of all, SantaCon. Let's hope for an even bigger snowstorm next year.
Positive comment! I went out in the late morning to buy cheese for my Christmas party and was expecting to just see the same polyester Santa suits over and over. But no, there were a lot of very inventive costumes that people had put a lot of effort into. Like Scandinavian looks, goth looks, women doing this kind of chic fashion elf look (not slutty). And more: lot of diversity - black couples from Harlem with elegant sprigs of mistletoe in their hair or pinned to coats, Latino couples and older couples wearing 19th-century Christmas ensembles. Everyone looked so happy and you could tell not everyone was in it just to get shit-faced. Okay, I didn't go out again for the rest of the day or night, but I liked what I saw in the morning.
I actually saw some cool costumes. One guy was a "Christmas Ghost-buster" (personally I find the idea of Bill Murry confronting the Ghost of Christmas Future kinda funny), a woman in a white and glittery Winter Fairy costume that cost someone a lot of work, an authentic St. Nicholas (4th century Roman bishop) and at least one Dickensian tophat and topcoat.
So I think that if Santacon could be reworked to be a kind of Christmas let-your-imagination-loose cosplay it might actually be cool.
I really didn't think it was that bad. My girlfriend and I did errands. I was stopped on 9th by a female Elf who asked "Do you guys live around here?", which I thought was laughable - guess I didn't blend in with the Santas. She asked for a and I quote "convenience store" -- guess the Bodegas on A between St. Marks and 10th weren't good enough. I direct her to 7/11 on 11th.
Meh.
Thanks to SantaCon, for one day, d-bags are easily identified and therefore avoided! If only they labeled themselves so blatantly all the rest of the year!
My positive experience was waking up this morning to find all of these fratholes GONE.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=1i9-jEm2hIw
I feel bad for the Kids. In the yarn shop yesterday, this cute little 6 yr old boy notices a pack of Santas walking up Ave A and says "Wow, look at all those Santas!". The Santas pass loud and drunkenly. Kid says "I don't like those Santas." Me neither, Kid.
Wylie's restaurant Alder had a strict no santas policy, even had a "no santas" sign at the door. At around 11pm, an elf comes in, arguing with the hostess that he is in fact an elf, not a santa.
There were maybe 10 to 15 Santas that showed up at I-Bar while I was there. They all behaved respectfully and some of 'em actually looked somewhat embarrassed.
I like the celebratory nature of it. Could do without the loud bros.
One positive was knowing that not ALL bar owners, restaurants, and local shops are greedy to the point to where they will quickly sell out to make a quick buck. It was refreshing.
It was nice to hang out in several local bars which banned SantaCon.
Thank you for that, local East Village merchants! Yay! We survived it!
I went out and about like it was no thang. Even went out to dinner on 9th street. It was raw, windy, icy all day long which did a nice job taking some of the edge off. For some reason there wasn't much sidewalk shoveling so it was a frozen mess everywhere. I saw a few slip and falls, and I'm sure they happened all over the place. I heard a kid whining to his bro about his wet Converse and freezing feet. Groups of girlfriends, underdressed, freezing, trying to get a taxi or figure out the next destination, getting all snippy with each other. As an over the hill thirtysomething I was ready to feel jealous of all the merrymaking but I ended up not. A bro in a pack hollered out into the void--Show your boobs for freedom! He was trying hard. It all felt so workmanlike. You can easily get people together and drunk, but when there is literally no cause, nothing you are celebrating, then you can't have real merrymaking. You have fake merrymaking, which is kind of boring. Also I can echo the sentiment that this Con is seeming more like a bridge and tunnel thing, that might now be seen as passe by some of the college and post college twerps who live here. Kind of like going to Times Square on NYE.
NY1 made it sound like santa.con was a gift to be appreciated.
good clean fun.
for charity no less.
The best thing about it being over is that I don"t have to read or hear overly dramatic whiners complaining about this pub crawl for another 350 days
...you can spend your year any way you like, 3:44.
If you'd like to see photos of my Detour, an alternate SantaCon for more experienced Santas trying to avoid the drunken douchebaggery, have a look at my page: https://www.facebook.com/events/674491619248449/?source=1
Not all Santas are stupid.
Abby
A lot of girls dressed in hot, slutty santa costumes.
gave me another occasion to be grateful for the hard work NYC Sanitation has to do. I was impressed with how well DOS picked up after the mess that is SantaCon. Props to the "strongest."
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