There is a lot of opportunity to attend cultural events in New York. I suppose that one might say that these events are free, but from another perspective the events are only available to those people who can afford time to attend them, and that means being able to afford to live in a place in which it would be reasonable to travel to attend them. Attending free events in New York generally means that one has to pay the costs of living in New York.
On the evening of Saturday 13 July I went to Prospect Park to attend a screening of the Bela Lugosi Dracula accomplanied by the Philip Glass Orchestra, who were performing the soundtrack for the movie composed by Philip Glass. The venue was packed and there must have been a couple of thousand people there lying on the lawn watching this movie and hearing this music. I attended with Richard, who lives in Brooklyn. I asked him what he thought of the show and he told me that he had never before seen Dracula and that he thought that it had not aged well, except that he liked the performance of the actor playing Renfeld. I like this movie a lot and although some of the special effects are dated I do not feel that this distracts from the other parts of the movie, and I like this version and Bela Lugosi a lot.
Some days later on Monday 15 July I went to Central Park to attend a free performance of the Philharmonic. Again, there were lots of people here, but the show was not so crowded as the space in Brooklyn and even though thousands attended there could have been many more. I arrived at 7 for the show at 8 and found an empty space. This boy came up to me, angry, saying that he had been there since 5 and that the space was his. I was a little confused by this because it seemed to me that the spot was not even the best and there were lots of other spots around. He had some friends with him and they all seemed kind of exasperated about people trying to encroach on their claimed space. I just said excuse me and moved along, as there really was space everywhere, but then I started thinking about how these people felt like they had something which they could lose and that they needed to protect and how I cannot imagine anyone at any similar event in Seattle who would emotionally identify so readily with a spot on the lawn, especially when they were in a high-traffic area and especially when nothing would be lost by sending people on to the abundance of empty space. I think that aggression as a default posture is just part of New York Culture.
The next day, Tuesday 16 July, there was another concert by the Philharmonic at Van Cortlandt Park. The shuttle from work goes directly to this park, so I stayed late at work and then went there. I was later to this than I was to Central Park and there were many fewer people attending. In this case I decided to be at the front and at the center of the field so that I could easily watch the players. Even with my arriving soon before the show this space was available. In Central Park I saw a lot of people drinking wine, and of course they were mostly white because Manhattan is expensive. It is not legal to drink alcohol in public places but since people drinking wine in Manhattan are less likely to be rowdy than people drinking booze in Prospect or Van Cortlandt Park no one in Manhattan objected. People in Prospect Park smoked weed everywhere and I saw one guy there who had his boyfriend on a leash and in his underwear, which is something else different about the culture of Brooklyn as compared to Manhattan. Van Cortlandt Park definitely had the most children there and had significant attendance by people of color, but still I was disappointed that this place had the lowest turnout when it was such a nice evening and such a good show.