Chase Bank, 10th and 2nd, across from the St. Marks Church, Sunday morning. Via Marklow. According to Morgan Winn:

This happened across the street from my apartment. The protest happened yesterday. Chase is one of the biggest investors in mountain top removal mining. The protesters said they would leave a mountaintop in every Chase. They did.

I think it was pretty baller. Also didn’t hurt that the bulk of the protesters were part of a church choir that was singing lovely inspiration tunes.

Had coffee this morning with former members of the Youth International Party, who were reminiscing on this spring-like day in New York about how, in April of 1968, they ceremonially removed the hands of the clock in Grand Central Station.

They poured into the vast main concourse of Manhattan’s Grand Central Station 3,000 strong, wearing their customary capes, gowns, feathers and beads. They tossed hot cross buns and firecrackers, and floated balloons up toward the celestial blue ceiling. They hummed the cosmic “Ommm,” snake-danced to the tune of Have a Marijuana, and proudly unfurled a huge banner emblazoned with a lazy “Y.”

The Yippies—1968′s version of the hippies—were celebrating spring. Hardly had the equinoctial orgy begun, when it turned as bleak as a midwinter blizzard. A dozen youths scaled the information booth, ripped off the clock hands, scribbled graffiti and defiantly passed around lighted marijuana “joints” in full view of the Tactical Patrol Force. The fuzz charged, billy clubs flailing, and arrested 61 demonstrators. Battered but unbowed, the celebrants coursed off to the Central Park Sheep Meadow to “yip up the sun.”

Time Magazine

David Peel & the Lower East Side – I Like Marijuana

My friends Jessica Grindstaff and Erik Sanko are having an art opening this Tuesday at John Derian, a store in the East Village.  Please come and see their fabulous work!

Pictured above is one of Erik’s marionettes.