Report: Weirdos Still Alive and Well in New York

It’s common these days to whine about how inauthentic New York has become, how sanitized. Yuppies! Nobody can afford to live in Manhattan! Park Slope is overrun with germy kids! Cigarettes cost like a thousand bucks PER CIG! But as evidenced by these pics of a punk show/Mad Hatter tea party from Tompkins Square Park yesterday, New York seems to be as out there as ever. Yay.

EV Grieve published an array of photos of a free punk show, replete with the type of punkers that are a part of East Village legend (but that, let’s face it, don’t exist in the same way anymore). This free punk show, featuring moshing and angry-faces, was happening at the same time and place as “The First Annual Massive Mad Hatter’s Tea Party,” which exists.

The Tea Partiers (not that kind) appear to have been the kind of extravagant weirdos that you often see in small groups of one or two, but less frequently in a large gathering. Their be-hatted presence, plus that of the quasi-punk/hardcore people moshing nearby, led to the kind of freak mishmash that makes a New Yorker’s heart sing. Like so. (See EV Grieve for more photos):

All photos via EV Grieve.