cowabunga dude!

Last night I went to the Tribeca Drive-In for the 25th anniversary of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. I heard about it from someone I met last weekend, and it was one of those random things that I always want to do but end up not doing. But, I got the word out and Minna invited some of her friends to it. It was in the courtyard/pavilion at the World Trade Center (or something..) and I'd never been there before. I don't like the idea of finance, mostly because it's so foreign to me and there's not much about it to like from what I know. There's a sense of coldness and sterility about the field of finance, but I can't argue against its sense of power. And looking around the waterfront pavilion last night, the edifices of that power were so .. grand. I couldn't help but just stand at the corner of this one glass-slated building and stare up. Although I don't really like the concept of design so much (it's gone a little far; oftentimes too conceptual to be practical), it's so freaking effective in that area. I had mixed feelings about it: as nice and important as those buildings are, there are people who suffer in them. Granted, there are people who suffer in every building, but the current state of the economy and the fragility of financial jobs adds an interesting flavor.

And amid all these buildings, next to the water (prime prime prime real estate, OMG-status), probably between 1,000 and 2,000 people came with their kids to watch Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. There was free popcorn, face-painting, turtle masks, costumes, Snapple, and Starbucks all over the place. White outdoor chairs were set up for people to sit, and there was a fenced-off fake grass section for kids to sit in the front. It was cold (~40?) and the wind came in hard at times from the water, but we stayed and watched the pizza-eating num-chucking human-sized turtles til the end. We also sat next to a group of overly-zealous TMNT teenage fans who kept cheering and hollering at every 'cowabunga' and 'duuuude' -- it was 'awwwsomee.'

Such behavior or events aren't characteristic of finance. And yet it all happened in the heart of the financial district. interesting. Last night's event is one of the best uses of public space I've seen personally. It was held in an area that people would otherwise rarely visit and transformed a space that was built for one thing into another entirely. I love this crap; I don't get how others aren't really interested or couldn't give a Splinter's ass (heh..) I want to go to planning school, but is this more a hobby than a career calling? meh.