A few scenes from SantaCon yesterday in the East Village...
Above photos by Derek Berg...
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...and some photos by EVG reader Cheyenne...
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Will update later with any reports of arrests, donation totals, etc. (Two SantaCon protesters were reportedly ticketed yesterday for using megaphones without a permit.)
Perhaps we'll find out more about all this at One and One ...
Or this...
Updated 2:19 p.m.
From Gothamist:
An NYPD spokesperson told Gothamist that there were no SantaCon-related arrests made last night. NBC caught footage of two "SantaCon Is Cancelled" protesters who appeared to be arrested before noon, but an NYPD spokesperson told Gothamist that there was no record of their arrests. Officers did issue 100 summonses though, most of which were for disorderly conduct.
H/T NOTORIOUS
That looks great. It looks like people having fun.
ReplyDeleteWhat app is this?
ReplyDeleteNot that this will make any of us feel better, but this thing has fully infected the upper Flatiron/Madison Square Park area as well. I was walking home from school in the Chelsea area (late-ish, too, around 7:15) and there were throngs of Santas everywhere. First, inside a glassfront liquor store around 27th, there were 5 Santa chicks just standing inside, all clicking on their phones, none talking or looking up or even, ya know, buying booze. The shop guys look bewildered. It's not truly terrible behavior but just so indicative of Santa obliviousness.
ReplyDeleteWelp, it got much worse from there. Twice I passed lone, incredibly intoxicated Santa bros who IDK if they were trying to cross the street or hail a cab or what, but they almost walked right into speeding traffic. They easily could have been killed. I walk home that way all the time and let me tell ya, 6th Avenue uptown traffic don't play. Yet I had no instinct to pull them back to the curb like I would anyone else, young or old, rich or poor, if I saw a person in a state like that ... so Santacon is actually making me into a uncaring jerk too.
Around 26th/Bway, I saw a Santa on the ground, and another guy was punching him. The puncher was doing it so ineptly—and fighting Santas are such a cliche—that at first I thought they must be joking around, but then the puncher started kicking the other guy in the head. A bunch of other Santas stood and watched. I couldn't tell if anyone knew each other. Finally a doorman came from the next building and broke it up. The guy on the ground saw the puncher's phone and feebly attempted to whip it at the puncher as he was being led away, but it just made a sad little drop on the ground. Puncher saw this and tried to lunge at the thrower to start another round of fighting. I kept walking. It's also not this doorman's job to make sure these assholes don't kill each other.
I walked through the park and saw a drunk Santa and his lady friend molesting each other on benches. Upper 3rd Avenue from about 23rd to 18th was totally clogged with Santas, as bad as anything we've seen in the 13th Step/lower 3rd Ave area. One bar had a huge line wrapped around the corner. Lots of yelling, sidewalk swarms, people clearly wasted out their minds.
Made a shortcut through the blissfully Santa-free Stuy Town back to upper Avenue A, where there were fuckin' Santas everywhere!! So that's my Santacon 2016 report.
You know what I did not see once during any of this? A cop.
Hey, how about some videos
DeleteThe Vigilante app
ReplyDeleteThe Trump Christmas sweater just about sums the whole thing up.
ReplyDeleteI love it. I walked out onto to avenue last night amongst the sprawling, troubled sea of red, white and ruddy with drink and breathed in mightily and deeply, in through the nose and out through the mouth, stretching out my arms as I did with all the self-satisfied luxuriousness of the proverbial cat that just swallowed the proverbial canary.
ReplyDeleteThe flower of the nation, the sweet nectar of the youth steeped in poison and reigned in by mindless conformity; a great wasting of the flesh and of precious time, and what wonderful, unhampered agitation and nerve-shattering disruption to your otherwise sad, abnormal little lives all wrapped up in a silky little bow.
And to think, these are your children. You know, it used to mean something to be the village idiot, but now ... they're all idiots. And you made them. Bravissimo!
They were more aggressive than ever this year. Trump's win has emboldened them.
ReplyDeleteAll these photos should be captioned identically: "Look at me, drunk out of my mind and acting like a jerk! Aren't I special?! And hey, how stupid am I? VERY! Are you jealous yet?"
ReplyDelete@1:55pm: Thank you for that report; I'm actually happy to know they're fucking up other neighborhoods (richer ones, in the case of Madison Square Park area). I hope they fuck up Herald Square & Times Square next year, and maybe the Gracie Mansion area so that EVERYONE in Manhattan eventually gets a good whiff of this shit-fest. Why should the East Village have all the "fun"? Maybe it'll become tacky to be seen down here (esp. next year, when there's a Moxy hotel under construction right across from Webster Hall).
Nice shot 13TH Step and Kingston Hall.Shoolbred's was swamped. People were swapping spit and humping each other on the sidewalk. Rent a room. It reminds me of some kind of grade school event at the catholic school.
ReplyDelete@2:52
ReplyDeleteso do the appropriation of gang signs.
I am not at all surprised they got permission to do this abominable shit in the Flatiron area, that spot has become an obnoxious tourist trap.
This cavalcade of douchebags and douchehags is why so many fucking things are wrong today. These subhumans need their own version of Altamont to take them back to reality.
But they can do this because there is no mediation or repression of vagrant behavior when it comes to the St Pats and Puerto Rican day parades and J'ouvert.
But comparably, this is worse because it's not even a real tradition or heritage, it's an excuse to get drunk and stupid, just like spring break in Florida. It's almost gilded age like too. This is why Trump is president, besides all that shitty Hillary and DNC manipulating and Russian infiltration.
Next year: Shabbos-Con in orthodox neighborhoods in Brooklyn. It'll be a hoot!
ReplyDeleteOn Orchard and Aves A and B at 5pm I thought there were more Santas than ever but by 9pm on Ave B it seemed very quiet. Day drinkers. As it's once a year I take no offense and I'd suspect the venues swamped at 4pm on a Saturday were enjoying the cash. However it is indicative of the end of any flavor among the night lifers that has been very evident for the last decade at least. The smart phone bubble generations having the generic drinking adventures of their entitled tribes.
ReplyDeleteZero arrests is BS flattery.. 100 summonses is absurd if you look at such a small geographic slice of where they all occurred. Optimistic this was the last.
ReplyDelete21st century douchebags
ReplyDeleteand the women who love them
My SantaCon tidbit from last night is über mildsauce compared to @1:55 PM's story, but I'll throw it in the basket anyway.
ReplyDeleteI work weekends in Midtown near Times Square and leave my office for the subway sometime around 9-ish. Not too many Santas in my zone, but it is tourist/gawker crowd heavy. Lots of body flow, plenty of heads in the stations. Anyway, hopped on the downtown N at 49th & B'way and saw embarking people trying to avoid what had to be a SantaCon-related vomit purge on the floor nearby the facing doorway. It didn't smell and it was more clear than milky, almost blending in to the floor like a chameleon. But it was still wet for sure. Whoever chucked it managed to avoid splattering the adjacent bench because people were trying to gauge whether it was kosher to sit down instead of standing up in an almost sardine can-packed car.
During my journey downtown, some people sat down, some decided to stand. Because it was right up against the doorway, every time we hit a station and the throngs of people waiting started to get on, some people's inner Spidey-Sense somehow started tingling and they noticed it in the nick of time, to flee screaming in other directions looking for better cars to ride. A few others were not so fortunate. Because it was the only seating space available, if you hopped on thru another doorway, you would miss the vomit and one lady who quickly wanted to sit down came centimeters from putting her bag right on the edge of the slime as she sat. Then a bell rang in her head after a few seconds and she looked over her shoulder at the vomit on the floor and hot-footed it right out of the seat.
As we hit 14th St/Union Square, the "vomit door" surprisingly didn't receive a crowd of people awaiting, but only one tall fellow who absentmindedly clomped on inside without looking down and put his right foot squarely into the vomit. There was no time to warn him. He stood in it for a spell until someone got up out of their seat at 8th St./NYU and he went over to sit, leaving two or three fresh shoe tracks of organic matter in his wake, blissfully unaware.
I laughed inwardly. Got off at Canal for the J. How the vomit car fared as it rode into Brooklyn and who might've stepped unknowingly into its chowder-like prize after, I know not.
The young man in the Trump sweater does sum it all up. He's most likely a bro and a republican and works in finance and parties it up with his bros on the weekends. Why is the EV a destination for these bros? I don't get it. They are obnoxious and entitled little shits. I am all for having a good time and enjoying the holidays with friends, but when you disturb the peace of our neighborhood, it makes want to run. Walking home last night on 7th, I ran into two brawls between two groups of people. All of them were screaming. One was puking in the corner. The others were screaming at the top of their lungs. And this was at 1 in the morning. Then another group of bros almost ran into me as they were walking down the sidewalk, as if they owned it. That is not okay. It is pathetic. Whomever invented Santa Con should needs their head examined. So over this bro/sorority bullshit.
ReplyDelete@Michael Ivan: You are right, the claim of no arrests is complete BS.
ReplyDeleteIf no one got arrested, either somebody got paid off and/or the NYPD can't be bothered. I personally saw a number of people who SHOULD have been arrested, but gee, somehow they were OK (which I believe is b/c they're WHITE douches; had they been black, we'd have newspaper headlines today about the beat-downs and worse).
Sorry, 4:55 (this is 1:55), but it brings me no happiness to know other neighborhoods are experiencing the Santacon misery we EVers have for so long.
ReplyDeleteWe're now seeing Santacon take over neighborhoods one would think would have more power (i.e., money, influence) to stop it from ever landing there, but instead Santacon is like a venereal disease: spreading, impervious to wealth.
It is a bad sign
Amateur hour
ReplyDeleteThere were over 50 arrests on St. Paddy's in NYC last year for drinking while intoxicated alone. There are far more events that cause just as much if not more public nuisances. We can't ban and protest everything. We have a police department for a reason. So, we put our tax dollars to use. I think people need to stop whining and complaining and toughen up. This is New York City.
ReplyDelete11:46 giving reports of the drunkenness, violence, and dangerous behavior we see during Santacon is not "complaining"; it is observing. If I made any complaint in my rundown of the night's events, it is that cops were nowhere to be found. So I have no idea what your "tax dollars" comment has to do with 2016 Santacon when the cops themselves are saying they made no arrests, as they do (and SHOULD) on St. Patrick's Day.
ReplyDeleteAnd you know, as someone who is maternally 100 percent Irish, I would love to see people stop using an Irish holy day as a reason to get severely intoxicated in public. It's not about banning anything. You can get falling-down drunk in this city on any day you like. But there is no reason that the cops should turn a blind eye to massive swarms of drunk Santas wreaking havoc on neighborhoods, and since they won't do their jobs, there is nothing wrong with people speaking out against these worthless events.
-- 1:55 pm
We saw some police presence on 3rd Avenue, but very early in the event (between 11 and 1 or so>... PM, not AM.)
ReplyDeleteThe sweater really has me feeling sad.
How I wish that CBs, Council, Public Advocate, etc. would "just say no" to this shite-show.
While no arrests were made, that doesn't mean it was good. This stupid non-tradition is just plain disgusting. Santa Claus, also known as Saint Nicholas, is...just that...a Saint. There is nothing "saintly" about drinking enough alcohol to blind all the elves at the North Pole. Acting like morons, screaming, yelling, throwing up, being rude, and dressing up as if Santa Claus had just crawled out of a sewer hole is nothing short of displaying an attitude of complete disrespect to those who celebrate Christmas (no I am not a Christian.) It displays a lack of intelligent thought on the part of those who participate.
ReplyDeleteLet's also discuss the fact that these "Santa wannabes" toss not only their cookies after drinking too much, they toss all the garbage, glasses, paper cups, plastic cups and various parts of their costume into the street as the day wears on. Walking up Second Avenue from 5th Street to 14th Street on Sunday morning was like walking through a garbage pit. Disgusting. I wonder just how many bars allowed underage drinking without even looking at IDs....which may have been fake. The State Liquor Authority should crack down on this abusive day of alcoholism run wild. Do the words "public safety" mean anything to anyone? What were the statistics for drunk Santa's being treated at emergency rooms?
Let's face, plain and simple, this is a totally disgusting display of excess drinking for no reason other than to run amok.
Did Vigilante rename their app to something else and it's public again? Mine is the original version with the eyes logo.
ReplyDelete