During the week before Saturday, February 18th, I caught wind of something I initially thought was a joke. There was going to be a pillow fight on Saturday at 2 p.m. in Union Square? Surely you jest. No. I found it on www.nygames.net. This was no joke. I decided then and there, that I was going.
On Saturday, I rode the train into the city, and made my way to Union Square. I wasted time in the many wonderful stores (like the 5 story Barnes & Noble and the Virgin Megastore), and at 1:20 I came out into the cold to wait for the fighters to assemble (I had not brought a pillow. I wanted to observe the fight, not participate. Plus, if it did end up being a joke, I wasn't going to be the only idiot with a pillow). At first there was no one there but the few requisite protestors, but slowly, people began to arrive.
At about 1:30 there were 5 pillow fighters looking for a battle. They looked lost and confused, desperate to find more of their kind. Luckily for them, as the minutes passed, more fighters did arrive. By 1:50 there were about 50-60 would-be pillow warriors. By 2:00, the number was nearly doubled. Approximately 100 to 150 fighters, armed solely with fluffy (many of which were feather) pillows, waited for the super secret cue to get started. In fact, the cue was so secret, no one was quite sure what it was going to be.At 2:00 someone yelled "Pillow fight!" but no one moved. They looked at each other, wondering if that had been the cue, and if they had missed it. No one moved to do anything; they just looked around.
But moments later, someone standing by a light post blew a whistle. The battle had commenced.Pillows were flying everywhere. The crowd, which has started pretty spread out, condensed into a massive, pillow-weilding mob. Though most of the fighters were in their 20s and 30s, there were a few smaller children who would run up to the crowd, take a couple swings with pillows the size of their bodies and retreat into their mother's arms, only to run back and take a couple more hits. Rinse, repeat.
In the middle of the mob, a few pillows exploded feathers in to the brisk air. When I gazed up at the tornado of feathers, it looked like it was snowing, but no, it was just the feathery mess of fun.There was even a man dressed in a bright green blazer with cut-off sleeves, and a silver bike helmet with orange flames who had invented a character for the occasion. When I accosted him to talk, he had a strong Scottish accent. When I asked him his name, he was suddenly American and asked if I wanted his real or his character name. When I said it didn't matter, he started up again with the Scottish voice. "I am General Cock-eyed McFeely," he told me.
"I'm an 1870s Scottish street thug who fell asleep and woke up in 2006 and decided to party!" I asked him how many battles he had engaged in this afternoon and he told me "5 score" and something about one for every year that his father had been alive before he bore him. Haha. "Alright! I'm goin' back in!" and he ran back in with his trusty fish shaped pillow, Lt. Maj. Fish Pillow.The fighting continued for an hour and twenty minutes. When the remaining fighters had finally become too tired to fight, they made friends and reclined in the giant pile of discarded pillows. Feathers were all over Union Square. The wind had brought some down to 13th Street, and all the way into the subway terminal beneath. And even though there were at least 3 cops hanging around the outskirts of the fight, they did nothing to shut it down. There was, after all, nothing wrong with having a pillow in public. One of the cops even told me that he thought it was pretty funny, too. Ha.
It was one of the most spectacular events I've ever witnessed in the city. The fact that so many people came out on a bitter cold Saturday afternoon (one man in pajamas) just to have a pillow fight, amazes me. I love New Yorkers.And I love New York City.
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