One thing that made a big difference between the Friday night in January 2002 versus Friday night this past January is that in 2002, the bar seemed to be a base for various excursions - to dinner at various restaurants, to a tattoo parlor, etc. This past January, it seemed that the action stayed right in that impossibly noisy bar, and never went anywhere else. That certainly reduced the opportunity for conversations.
I don’t know whether the difference was simply due to random differences in crowd behavior, or whether the neighborhood of the bar in 2002 was more conducive to such excursions than the neighborhood of the bar in 2003. Any thoughts from the locals? This out-of-towner would be lucky to find either bar again, without digging the addresses out of the old threads, so he’s in no position to speculate.
I don’t think anyone is suggesting having events in a library… just pointing out that Bleecker St. was way crowded. Glad we’re all on the same page about that. No Idea worked out much better. Finding wheelchair-accessible bars both nights where we can get our own rooms would be ideal. I need room for my outift and accessories.
OMG, other people know Egyptian Rat Fuck? I’ve never heard that sums rule, but I at least make sure to take off my rings before playing to avoid injuries. ;j
I am SO in! Lousy circumstances kept me out of the last TWO NYC Mega-Dopefests (bad weather last year (about two friggin’ feet of snow in on day,) and no car the year before, but this year is different!
I WILL drive down Martin Luther, JR. day weekend and meet everyone! Now, I just need to figure out how to get there, where to stay, etc…
(well, I can get to NYC, just go south on the Throughway…but then what to do? I am scared to death of driving in the city.)
This is a difficult calculus, depending on where in the city you’re staying. Newark is great if you’re staying on the west side of Manhattan - it has a direct rail link to Pennsylvania Station. LaGuardia is convenient to the East Side, but doesn’t have rail access; basically your choice is city bus (Billdo knows how that works) or cab. Kennedy is the farthest from Manhattan, but by the time you arrive it’s supposed to have easy rail access to the subway at Howard Beach, and to Penn Station via Jamaica. (Right now you have to take a bus to the subway, which takes forever because you make a dozen stops in the parking lot on the way. But “by the end of the year,” JFK Airtrain is supposed to open - an elevated rail line connecting each terminal, Howard Beach and Jamaica.)
I’m focusing on public transit because cab fares to any of them are expensive from Manhattan - $20-25 or so to LaGuardia, and $40-50 to Newark or Kennedy. There are also private buses, but I’m not terribly enthusiastic about them - they’re about $12-15 each way, but tend to take a long time.
But the moral is, every airport is doable, so if there’s a big price or schedule difference at your end, I’d go by that.
Put much more simply than Oxy, you can fly into LaGuardia, JFK, or Newark and get in just fine by public transportation. If they are all around the same price (less than $20 difference), go for LaGuardia. Otherwise, go for the cheapest.
Since I got into this place because some of you folks came into Rose’s Turn last year (I was the bald woman who asked if you were science fiction geeks or BDSM folks; still bald, still hanging at Rose’s regularly), I think I will come out and match more faces to names.
I am also willing to do research into places to meet, including bars with back rooms that are handicap-accessible. (I’ve done that in the past, so it won’t be a hardship.)
For the record, if folks are willing to live dangerously and trek into Brooklyn, there are places with back rooms that could work for major socializing events.
