Your Taxpayer Dollars Hard at Work in Union Square
Saturday morning, I headed to Union Square to bask in the sunshine and munch on a bagel. Instead of the usual group of protestors making obscene remarks about Bush and Cheney, there was a kinder, more pleasant brand of demonstration: Free Hugs!
A group of three or four college-aged guys were carrying around signs offering “Free Hugs!”
As far as I know, all hugs are free - unless you’re Eliot Spitzer. But regardless, it looked like a harmless gesture, and several people - men, women, young, and old - joined in and embraced.
Well, it was all fun and games until two Parks Department employees came along.
The male Parks Department employee started to berate the men and told them that what they were doing was sexual harassment. I found this particularly amusing, since they had hugged far more men than women in the ten minutes that I was sitting there.
The two employees continued claiming it was harassment and they would have to leave the park, or “move along,” as they condescendingly requested of the men. This attracted a crowd. Soon, dozens of Greenmarket shoppers were watching this debacle go on for several minutes.
Then, one bystander felt inclined to intervene. He didn’t exactly help by calling the Parks Department employees “facists,” but he invoked the words “democracy” and “free country,” to the applause of the Free Hugs demonstrators. Of course, at this point, things started to get heated.
After another five minutes or so of pleading their case and fighting over how something can be classified as sexual harassment when it is done voluntarily, it seemed as though the Parks Department employees were fighting a losing battle. Dozens of bystanders applauded when they finally started to walk away.
To add some fuel to the fire, I yelled in their direction as they walked away, “yeah, that’s right! Go back to doing what my money pays you to do and stop harassing these people!”
For that, I got a free hug from the guys. They asked me if I felt sexual harassed by their hugs. I most assuredly did not.
This entry was posted on Monday, May 19th, 2008 at 9:02 am and is filed under Life in NYC. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
May 19th, 2008 at 9:52 am
Beejus says:I guess it depends on of it’s a full two-armed hug, or a one-armed dude hug.
May 19th, 2008 at 9:57 am
Tina-cious.com says:LOL — good for you! lol
That’s all we need is people banning hugs. Sheesh.
May 19th, 2008 at 10:01 am
lozo says:just another story from you that ends with you hugging multiple dudes.
May 19th, 2008 at 10:26 am
Sherri says:I never get to see this kind of stuff where I live. I’m envious!
May 19th, 2008 at 11:40 am
Chris says:lozo: Would it be weirder if I told you I did that in front of my girlfriend?
May 19th, 2008 at 12:59 pm
Todd says:I felt sexual harassed* just from reading this post, but I really liked it, so I think it’s okay.
* (you DO have to take it!)
May 19th, 2008 at 1:19 pm
jane says:Funny, the NYCParks employee I saw at Madison Sq Park on Sunday afternoon was actually doing his job. Lame tourist couple thought taking posed photos of male IN the fountain was a good idea.
Uh, no.
NYCParks, not for freaks anymore.
May 19th, 2008 at 2:12 pm
Sarah says:Some chicks are into that…(dudehugging, not fountainposing)
May 19th, 2008 at 3:15 pm
lozo says:weirder? no. hotter? you bet.
May 19th, 2008 at 5:02 pm
jamie says:im gonna go hug someone right now.
May 19th, 2008 at 5:05 pm
Tina says:First it starts with a hug. Then is leads to violent rape. Hugs are a gateway sign of affection.
May 19th, 2008 at 5:05 pm
jamie says:freaking power hungry parks department nutjobs.
go pull some weeds!
May 19th, 2008 at 7:30 pm
eastvillagechick says:Last spring a whole bunch of us had climbed the fence and were in the big green at Thomkins Square park. Park dept employees came by with megaphones screaming at us to leave. None of us moved. None of us yelled back, We just sat there, turned up our i-pods to drown them out and even after they threatened to call the cops we didn’t budge. Not with anger, we just didn’t care. It was sunny out. I thought it was really funny that they wanted us out of there for no good reason. The parks people like to pretend they have power. But people sitting in the sun doing nothing can have more. There were about 30 of us.
May 19th, 2008 at 10:26 pm
d says:NYC is out of control yo.
May 20th, 2008 at 7:21 am
Mel Gibson says:Just goes to show that THIS is how we should be running our government. When all of us band together against injustice and tyranny, then we shall prevail.
May 24th, 2008 at 11:03 pm
Anthony D'Onofrio says:Thanks for blogging about us. I organize the free hug events every Saturday in Union Square at noon. We thought these guys were particularly ridiculous.
Luckily they went away and haven’t come back since. Today however, the park rangers made the Hare Krishna’s stop playing music (which everyone loved and was dancing to) because they didn’t have a permit. It was just in time for the Christians to start preaching hellfire to everyone. (which everyone hated.)
Feel free to come get free hugs again any Saturday.
October 31st, 2009 at 6:19 pm
Xtine says:I used to read Tarot in Central Park- $5 for a 3 card reading, $10 for a 10 card reading. It was an enjoyable pastime that made some extra money and the people in the park really enjoyed contemplating the Tarot and talking about their relationship, business, etc. Then I was told by the Park Employees that I wasn’t allowed to set up my little table and read Tarot because “fortune telling” is prohibited- even though they allow a bunch of other vendors, religious people, etc. I think that stinks.
I tried applying for a permit but they wouldn’t give me one. Had I been a portrait artist, craftsperson, performance artist, etc, I would have been fine. Not fair.
November 22nd, 2009 at 6:40 pm
Giron Harriett says:What do you give a lady so sweet? Who makes my existence so complete.Should She get a Long-stemmed Rose?
May 14th, 2010 at 9:40 pm
Douglass Savitch says:I must first admit that a majority of the personal data market would seem to be exactly like a household of mirrors in terms of getting with the actual. There does exist a whole lot of so named real data floating available out there but from my own practical experience it appears to be like it is the majority of the the precise same junk. I am actually scouting for opt-in personal data that Allow me to use for e-mail promotions in a few special web based sectors but what we’ve received at this point resemble it was absolutely farmed off of internet resources. Lots of the weblogs on the web are polite but I can feel dizzy just attempting to sort through all the posts of good data.
June 22nd, 2010 at 5:04 am
Burma Stovel says:I with no doubt like Mel Gibson for being so great in “We Were Soldiers”!