NY Times photo of the Easter Be-In in NYC's Central Park

Front page NY Times photo of the Easter Be-In NYC's Central Park- 1968

 

Lucky me got to sit next to dear Alyson Kaplan (holding forth in her large white bonnet.)

Also on the rock are David (Vijay) Hassin, Jay (Jai) Weiner, Larry (Hare) Zupan, and Bobby Applebaum.

This day was truly one of the infinitly sparkling seminal points of my life. I can still hear Alyson chanting and incantating this mantra.

"It doesn't matter." It really doesn't matter."


And you know what? That seemed to sum it all up.

 

 

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

 

March 26, 1967


"The Easter Be-In was organized by Jim Fouratt an actor, Paul Williams editor of Crawdaddy! magazine, Susan Hartnett head of a the Experiments in Art and Technology organization and Chilean poet and playwright Claudio Badal.


With a budget of $250 they printed 3,000 posters and 40,000 small notices designed by Peter Max and distributed them around the city. The Police and Parks Departments quietly and unofficially cooperated with the organizers
An estimated 10,000 people participated in the event at the Sheep Meadow in Central Park.

The majority of participants were hippies. They were joined by families who had attended the Easter Parade and members of the Spanish community who were notified of the event by Spanish language posters.


The New York Times described them as “poets from the Bronx, dropouts from the East Village, interior decorators from the East Side, teachers from the West Side and teeny boppers from Long Island” and said that “they wore carnation petals and paper stars and tiny mirrors on foreheads, paint around the mouth and cheeks, flowering bedsheets, buttons and tights”.


The event was guarded by small number of police. At 6:45 a.m. the first police car arrived. The car was covered flowers with while the crowd chanted of “daffodil power” at which point the police quickly retreated.


While police held their distance most of the day, 5 officers did approach two nude participants, at which point the officers were surrounded while the crowd chanted “We love cops/"Turn on cops”. The situation was defused when the crowd at the urging of other participants backed off.


At 7:30 at night the police beamed lights on the group and used bullhorns to tell participants to disperse. Again the police were rushed by participants. Following a brief period of tension the police decided to let the event continue."

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Park_be-in

 

 

Click here for an enlargement.