On Sunday September 22, 2014 I attended the Climate March in New York City. The news has reported that somewhere between 310,000 and 400,000 people marched. It was an incredible event. I don’t usually like being a part of a crowd however I felt this event was too important to miss considering I live in Brooklyn, NY. 
Since I care about the environment, I want to share about this on my blog. I will get to the Climate March costumes as I go along in the story. I would say that from what I saw if you want to have an eco-conscious outfit for Halloween, dressing as an endangered species would be a popular idea. There were many men dressed as “Climate Change.” Men seemed to interpret this visually as involving very bright colors with lots of little things hanging off the outfits. Bees and bee keepers were very big as well.
The group I was with gathered at 9:30am on the Amsterdam Avenue side of the Natural History Museum. I volunteered with Defenders of Wildlife. Their mission is to help endangered animals and to safeguard the environmental habitats that wildlife live in. It was exciting meeting Julia Shaw and Yaron Miller who were there to represent their group. We spent a couple of hours setting up making signs, signing the (SAFE) Act for wildlife, having refreshments and talking. Then we set out to get into line for the march.
We entered the waiting area, at 82nd and Columbus Avenue. We were planning on marching near a group that had Antarctic ice caps prop. They had members of their group carrying the sea (a long line of blue fabric). We were not able to march until right before 2pm! My feet were getting sore from standing for so long. I had just decided to sit down when within a few minutes it was finally time to march. While we had been waiting a group of men and women dressed as bees and bee keepers were dancing. Djmebe drummers were drumming. I assume some of them had bandaged fingers by the end of the day with all that drumming! There was one colorful young man who declared certain surrounding areas where people were waiting “boring. ” He proceeded to dance through one spot to another in his bright striped outfit with a bustle attached to his behind. His bustle had a train of plastic shopping bags flurrying behind it on the ground. Even the people on the side walk across the police barricades were fun to watch. There were others coming to join the march or parents who had decorated the backs of their baby carriers to resemble little trees. One woman walked by dressed as a bee in all black with little wings and a flurry of fake bees attached to the wings.
Everything went pretty well until we rounded the corner at 59th Street and Columbus Avenue, which was really supposed to be the starting point of the march. We had only gone a block or two around the corner and the Antarctic prop fell into a pothole, or busted a wheel. I don’t really know what happened but whatever it was it mimicked what is really occurring in life with climate change. A bunch of marchers, me included stopped suddenly. We wanted to continue on with the prop and as we all stood there watching and wondering a woman in charge of that group came up and reminded us all that we had to continue marching. So we continued on, without the antarctic prop or the sea of blue fabric being held up by surrounding marchers. It was a kind sad symbolic moment. As we continued on to Sixth Avenue and down to 48th Street we saw many more people on the sidelines dressed in costumes and holding signs. The same as further uptown many weren’t marching but choosing to participate from the sidelines. This is where I came upon the two captured fish women, Sister Gladiola Gladrags (whose costume was made from rugs and dishcloths), and a few men dressed as climate change.
We saw a huge container of water for refilling water bottles and I heard many comments about how “I’ve never seen that before!” Neither had I. There is never a free refill of water in New York City for those with water bottles but this day there was. It’s New York! Unless you buy something usually no one’s going to give you a free glass of water. I decided to walk back a bit with the woman I was walking with. We joined some members of our group that we saw, but within minutes we lost them again since there were so many people. The crowd would move faster on certain sides more than others.
As we approached Times Square I thought how I never dreamed I’d be marching in Times Square. I am not a person who enjoys huge gathering usually and I haven’t been to Times Square to see a ball drop on New Year’s since I was a teenager with my parents. My left foot was numb by this point but I was just exhilarated on a certain level to be a part of the march. Times Square always seems to me to have a larger than life quality so as usual I started thinking of how nice it’d be to get it behind me. I noticed that the cops even looked happy today. There were people watching everywhere. Lots of them looked as if they had just finished the march themselves. I ended up behind a huge parachute that kept going up and down with dancers running underneath and dancing very quickly by. Some young men from Vermont were very excited and shouting peaceful chants with a microphone. The surrounding crowds usually joined in or responded. One of the chants we repeated over and over that different people started was “What do we want? Climate Change! When do we want it? Now!”
My companion and I thought we had to march to 34th Street and 11th Avenue. With the huge crowds it seems the people in charge decided to stop the procession at 42nd and 11th rather than have us continue on the 34th. My feet were content to finish and the lady with me agreed that we should go down a side street and get away from the crowds. We encountered a young man who had volunteered to get the march set up. He’d been there since 7am! It took a lot of work and passion to get the march organized, make it happen and then do it!! It took a lot of people coming together to make a large statement. I am happy that I got to be a part of something so special.
