In between auditions, I've been helping out at the American Red Cross of Greater New York. I'm assisting the senior management and it is fun to hobnob with CEOs and the like.
As an extra duty, I was asked to organize a table to give candy and information to trick-or-treaters. One youth volunteer showed up at about 4 p.m. and we headed down to the corner of 48th and 10th Avenue. Not a lot of kids in costume, but the ones that did show up got candy. Some people asked for candy, but most didn't even notice us.
NYC Halloween- a fact sheet compiled from my conversations with the high school volunteers:
1. Kids don't go to residences, just businesses. It's the only safe way to do it here.
2. Most kids stop at about age 12 and then they start going to parties/clubs/etc.
3. When you give out candy here, you give out a large handful or two to each kid. (didn't we just get one piece per house?)
4. Costumes vary widely and it seems like the poorer the family, the more fantastic the costume. Also, parents will dress up infants to "trick-or-treat" and score free snacks. The infants had the most incredible costumes as they were pushed around in their strollers. Ann Geddes would have had a field day with all the insects, bunnies and arachnids being pushed around the West Side.
5. At our local grocery store I saw a bunch of kids run in with their VERY ghetto mom. She comes out 5 seconds later saying, "What the $%#$??? They gots a store full a food and they ain't givin' out nutt'n..."
Most of the time we were there, a cop was parked in his little traffic rickshaw on 10th avenue. He gave out tickets to drivers, flagging them down as they raced up the avenue and we were happy to see him since the neighborhood is a bit far afield from "nice".
After about an hour, our police officer friend went up one block to 49th to grab a snack at the convenience store and immediately we were approached by a very drunk, possibly mentally ill man with a cut on his forehead. He started yelling at me not to look at him and then he started to tell me about how nobody protects the neighborhood but him. I try to disuade him from staying around and he continued to escalate. I start moving away from my volunteers to distract him and it works for a couple of minutes. When he starts heading back to our little table, I come back and join my volunteers. He starts to get angry and he raises his hand and I see the little rickshaw pull up to the curb going the wrong way down 10th Avenue, "PABLO.... What are you doing?" yells the cop. "Are you bothering these people? Aww, come on man, you've hurt yourself. Let's get you to a hospital." The uniform makes Pablo step back. I get the girls to pack up and we head back to the office to drop off our supplies.
This might have been the second time that I felt unsafe in NYC. I guess that isn't too bad and once again, the NYPD showed up exactly when I needed them.
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