A moment with the Party Bus Express on Avenue A this morning

A dispatch from this morning via EVG reader Clare Farris...

This guy was on the east side of Avenue A between Fifth Street and Sixth Street at 7 a.m., bus turned off, blocking the entire stop, just chillin. I pointed to the sign and made wtf hands, and he opened the door to talk.

This is a bus stop.

What do you think this is? (Kind of pointing to his obvious bus.)

This is a city bus stop. People get on and off here.

I’m allowed to be here, my friend. [doors close]

The MTA bus driver almost didn’t stop, had to be waved down like a taxi, and wouldn’t even acknowledge me when I asked if he had any way to report shit like this.

If it had been pretty much any other kind of bus, I could carry on with my life. Not when it’s a Party Bus Express.

Finally, an appropriate East Village party bus!

Late yesterday afternoon... headline and photo via Goggla...

More on this past weekend's Avenue B party bus

A reader shared information after seeing our post from yesterday titled Buses, Bouncers and a Mysterious Avenue B part spot:

I took [a photo] of the party bus at approximately 3 a.m. on Friday night (early Saturday morning). By that point there was a cop car, an ambulance and a fire truck within the span of 2nd and 4th Streets on Ave B. One kid was unconscious sitting (more like slumped) on a stoop; when the cops asked his friends how old the kid was, they said 17. Saw another kid already in the ambulance.

The Rusty Knot Party Bus returns to the East Village!

That's right! The bus is back! We got word last week that Knotgoers in Williamsburg and the East Village/Lower East Side would once again get a free alcohol-fueled ride to the nautica-themed faux dive on the West Side Highway. The bus makes pickups at Bedford Avenue and North 7th Street at 8 p.m. and 10 p.m., and at First Street and First Avenue at 8:30 p.m. and 10:30 p.m. (I previously wrote about it here.)

I happened to be right here at First Street and First Avenue on my way to see the Icicle Audi when the bus promptly pulled in around 8:30ish... the bus idled here alongside Boca Chica for 15 minutes or so...

...before pulling away...

And I didn't see one person get on. (And I couldn't tell how many people were on the bus.) Just saw one fellow in a beard and cardigan exit the bus a few times and look up First Avenue to see if any Knotgoers were on the way... Perhaps there were more people for the 10:30 p.m. pickup...

Bonus Party Bus Excerpt from last February, when a Times reporter hopped aboard:

“This is raging!” said Ryan McGaffigan, a 32-year-old sales manager in a wool cap, plaid shirt and ’50s-style glasses. He had just polished off two Buds “shotgun” — puncturing the can and finishing it in one long swig.

Previously on EV Grieve:
Rusty Knot Party Bus makes East Village debut

Tri-colored party bus makes pit stop on Avenue C

Anyone know anything about this groovy party bus spotted tooling around the neighborhood on Saturday afternoon...?



The bus made a pit stop on Avenue C near Ninth Street... Inside, I could hear someone explaining the rules of a drinking game over a loudspeaker...



And the reason for the stop? So that a passenger, who brought along her drink (that cup on the ground), could use an ATM...

Everything that you've ever wanted to know about the Rusty Knot Party Bus

In January I wrote a post about the Rusty Knot Party Bus, which picks up Knotgoers in Williamsburg and then on First Avenue and First Street and plies them with alcohol before they go to the nautica-themed faux dive on the West Side Highway for a swingin' Monday night...

I didn't actually get on the bus. But I was curious!

Thankfully, a Times reporter boarded the party bus... and pretty much answered all my questions... To the story!

“This bus is a little bit like going back to the New York of the ’70s or ’80s, when it wasn’t about the money, it was about the spirit,” said Richard Mark Jordan, an actor from Bushwick who was gyrating in the aisle with friends and high-fiving strangers.

His revelry, while enthusiastic, seemed tame when compared with the crazed riders chanting “Party bus! Party bus!” while pounding their palms on the bus’s windows. Two guys in skateboard sneakers leaped onto a vinyl-upholstered seat, jerking their heads to the metal anthem “Hell Bent for Leather,” air guitars apparently cranked up to 11.

A woman in preppyish attire who in another context might be mistaken for a Congressional aide tried to crawl through a roof hatch, but her progress was blocked by a bolted cover. She had to settle for another form of misbehavior — pouring a can of Bud over a male friend’s head. He didn’t seem to mind.

“This is raging!” said Ryan McGaffigan, a 32-year-old sales manager in a wool cap, plaid shirt and ’50s-style glasses. He had just polished off two Buds “shotgun” — puncturing the can and finishing it in one long swig.

How could it be boring? The bus runs on irony as much as diesel. The basic premise is a cultural inversion: Manhattan tastemakers once sneered at the “bridge and tunnel” crowd overrunning their night spots. Now, they haul them in by the busload.

Previously on EV Grieve:
Rusty Knot Party Bus makes East Village debut

Rusty Knot Party Bus makes East Village debut

As Eater noted, last night marked the debut of the Rusty Knot Party Bus, which picks up Knotgoers in Williamsburg and the East Village and plies them with alcohol before they go to the nautica-themed faux dive on the West Side Highway for a big party or something ...

Given the crazy-cat Web site, I figured this might be a shitshow...



I had no intention of getting on the bus -- just curious what might happen while waiting to board. The bus was scheduled to stop at First Street and First Avenue at 8:30 last night (and later at 10:30) ...and it promptly rolled up at 8:28.




Two people were waiting to board. Three more people hustled across First Avenue... other passengers included three-four people who were waiting inside at One and One...and three guys who arrived on skateboards. So 12 by my count. No one was in costume. And only two people sort of squealed while boarding.



The bus idled for nearly 15 minutes...



...before taking off, making a clumsy left onto Third Street...

Noted

Hmm. Hard to read... it's sponsored by "a very popular very smooth vodka." Spotted at 10th Street and Third Avenue.

News from other East Villages: Shots fired at a party bus in the East Village of San Diego

According to 10 News in San Diego:

A shooter fired three rounds from a shotgun at a party bus early Monday morning in the East Village following an apparent road rage incident in La Mesa, but no one was injured in the attack, a police sergeant said.

The shooting occurred while the party bus was stopped at a gas station in the 1600 block of F Street around 1 a.m., according to San Diego police Sgt. Bob Dare.

Several people were on the bus when a white van pulled up and someone from the van got out and fired three shotgun rounds at the front of the bus, Dare said.