wo weeks before her guests plan to arrive, the hostess cannot remember their travel arrangements or even their names.Posted on 08/17/2004 12:26:35 PM PDT by NYC GOP Chick
wo weeks before her guests plan to arrive, the hostess cannot remember their travel arrangements or even their names.
"It's hard to keep track," said the hostess, Shelby Eidson, 24. "The Canadian couple's driving. The lesbian couple's driving. The biker activist girl is driving or getting a ride."
Ms. Eidson has little to offer these people, only a dark wooden floor in a small room near the Boy's Grocery in Sunset Park, Brooklyn. She walks the floor in faded overalls and flip-flops. Her toenails are painted baby blue. She affects a purposeful tone.
"The more people that can be here, the better," Ms. Eidson said. "As long as they don't mind sleeping on the floor, it's free."
Though her accommodations are modest, Ms. Eidson expects seven houseguests in her two-bedroom apartment during the Republican National Convention. Aside from those traveling with their partners, the guests have never met. Yet they share common ground in their intention to protest in the streets and their willingness to depend on the kindness of strangers.
Unlike the delegates and journalists coming to New York, protesters are being offered no hotel rooms, no free Broadway shows and no massages.
Still, they are receiving an outpouring of hospitality from scores of people who are opening their apartments, churches and improvised spaces as temporary shelter, free of charge.
The choices are scattered across the boroughs and are as diverse as the protesters themselves. The process of finding a place to stay is a lot like ordinary roommate hunting, except that the starting point is neither neighborhood nor amenities, but rather vague political affinity.
The hosts have been encouraged to participate by organizers of loosely allied protest groups with names that leave little to interpretation, like Counter Convention and R.N.C. Not Welcome.
"They don't need to be told why we're protesting the convention," said Geoff Johnson, 26, an organizer who, like many of those involved in planning protests, has a day job unrelated to politics. "The sell is that it's a minor crisis, so it's something people are willing to help out with."
Once so motivated, the hosts find guests through word of mouth and advertisements posted on politically sympathetic Web sites. The hosts expect to be cramped, but aside from the close quarters, their first concern is screening the guests. The popular image of protesters as wild-eyed, window-smashing anarchists is an unfair stereotype, but still, the world is full of crazy people.
"Some people said their name was Flowerchild and they were bringing a dog, and I didn't want to give the room to them," said Judi Aronowitz, 67, who lives in Manhattan. After sorting through dozens of responses, Ms. Aronowitz said, she settled on three young men from Florida who "just sounded honest."
Some hosts are hoping that their advertisements will ward off undesirables. Lauren Knighton, who is offering a space in the one-bedroom apartment she shares with her boyfriend in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, specified that drug use and cigarette smoking were against the house rules.
By the same token, other hosts are warning applicants that their apartments are not exactly the Four Seasons.
"There is a disabled child living here, which causes enough chaos," one posting says. Another says that the apartment can accommodate six people, or perhaps more if the guests are "creative sleepers."
Most of the protesters will find more comfortable lodging than the guests of Casa del Sol, an unfinished building in the Mott Haven section of the Bronx whose ownership is in dispute, and where squatters have taken up residence. They have posted notice that they can accommodate 70 people - in rooms with no air-conditioning or hot water, on floors covered in sawdust.
To its credit, Casa del Sol, on East 136th Street, is easy to find. The brick facade is festooned with graffiti and signs, including one that says: "This Is Our Community. Clean Up After Your Dog. Prevent Fascism."
A mounted camera points at the front gate, and the side yard holds an enormous white tepee. The entrance is filled with wood chips, and a coat rack holds a vest, an umbrella and a surgical mask. Spray enamel and fire extinguishers sit in a hallway under a wooden bas-relief of green cactus, blue clouds, yellow sun, orange world. One day last week, young men and women dressed in unwashed shorts scurried up and down the building's staircases, at work cooking or pushing around the sawdust.
On the sixth floor, there is a room with exposed rafters and windows that look out on highway ramps. The floor holds blankets, soundproofing materials and a plastic record player - the kind that girls used to take to slumber parties - spinning a Rolling Stones record.
"To live in this town, you must be tough, tough, tough, tough, tough, tough, tough," Mick Jagger's voice sang through the speaker.
The host here is Rafael Bueno. His wispy salt-and-pepper hair pokes out from under a baseball cap, and he wears clear-rimmed plastic glasses and a short-sleeved flannel shirt.
Mr. Bueno, who says he is a Mayan priest, also appears to be something of a collector. Scattered around the building are a bathtub, a bow and arrow, a sombrero, a pumpkin-shaped lampshade, tools, milk crates, spray cans, a piano and a small ax. A thin cat squints up from a blanket in his studio.
Mr. Bueno opened files full of applications for lodging, all of which he has approved.
"Everybody I've screened have been the best people in the world," Mr. Bueno said. "The least comprehended people in a society are the most beautiful."
Those seeking a somewhat more comfortable stay can go across the river to Harlem, where the Rev. Earl Kooperkamp expects to house 30 to 50 protesters at St. Mary's Episcopal Church, near the 26th Precinct station house. His guests can choose between the wooden pews or the cool tile floor downstairs. The basement is air-conditioned, but it is used as an outreach center, so protesters will have to be up and out the door by 6 a.m.
Father Kooperkamp has persuaded about three dozen religious institutions to open basements, sanctuaries, gymnasiums and parish halls, enough room for about 500 protesters in all.
Though he shares the protesters' politics and intends to demonstrate against the convention, he speaks of other motivations.
"The practice of hospitality both makes us more human and makes the world a more humane place," Father Kooperkamp said. "As long as they're standing firm against war, working for peace, that's what the church is supposed to be about. We pray every day to a guy called the Prince of Peace."
I hope you can too. This thread is hilarious. I just hope no dummies catch on. But then again, that could be fun too.
That's BS, it's just an excuse to do nothing. Maybe most of these people don't have jobs or such, but are attending to have their voices heard, while we hide behind our excuses, and then wonder why we lost. Sitting here, talking tough to like minded people, doing nothing. You admire the one or two who stands a watch, protesting the protesters, yet go right back to telling everyone how superior we are because we have a life. Tell me, what kind of life will you or your kids have when Kerry is elected, will the topic be how much your taxes have gone up, your kids education worse because the NEA is getting all the money, and the great unwashed given more because they did take to the streets. We are the "silent majority', we will sit there as our country is destroyed, bitching about it here. Our sons and daughters are fighting for another peoples freedom, the least we can do is give them a country to come back to. one where they won't be spit on, that will happen if the left wins. Take back the streets, the towns, and the country. And don't give out the crap that we have the guns, most will not want to make waves, and give them up. Don't let the rage you feel be diluted by talking about what the other side is doing, talk about what we're doing. Semper Fim always faithful to God and Corps, but starting to wonder about the country.
I guess that I could - out of the kindness of my heart - offer my back porch down here in Newport News, Virginia ….
It might be difficult for them to make it to the protests, but -
Someone ought to find out the addess of Michael Moore's apt. in NYC and send them there.
Bet he wouldn't let their smelly asses in.
I visited there also. I can't believe how stoopid folks can be to list their phone numbers and private email addresses (not throw-away, but real ones) at that website.
They shouldn't be surprised if their emails fill up with who knows what garbage. And won't they just love to get wacked-out phone calls day and night.
Unbelievably dumb. They must think this is their own little world where nobody else can see. LOL!!!
Speak for yourself. When juggling such expenses and obligations, taking time off work and making appreciable monetary outlays is not always an option to those of us who are genuine contributors to society.
This one is unusual
Contact Person: kaitlyn
E-mail: kaitlyn@riseup.net
Additional Info:
MEDICS NEED HELP!!!
We're desperately looking for clinic space. Please either help look or grant us a miracle! (Pass this along, too, please)
Why do they need clinic space????
And this one just wouldn't work for conservatives...
Housing Working Group - reaching out to religious spaces to open as many doors as possible to out of town activists. They need your help.
* FAITH SPACES:
Make an introduction.
Are you a member of a congregation that you think would or should host protesters during the convention? We are doing a lot of cold calling and outreach, but if you can let us know who to talk to in your congregation or (even better) can reach out to them yourself and be our liason to your congregation, that would be a huge contribution to our efforts. If you have some more energy get in touch with the working group and we'll put you to work.
While we would never be able to get by with that, it sure seems to be working for them...
Offering Housing in Dobbs Ferry, Dobbs Ferry NY
30 spaces available
Contact:
Contact Person: Rachel Thompson
E-mail: rachelthompson@optonline.net
Additional Info:
We're two Presbyterian ministers offering space in a Presbyterian church in Dobbs Ferry NY, a 35 minute train ride from Grand Central.
Offering Housing in Forest Hill,Newark,NJ, Newark, NJ
25 spaces available
Contact:
Phone: 9177018766
Contact Person: Paul
E-mail: africanworld@mindspring.com
Additional Info:
our church has a retreat house that might be available for housing 3 bedrooms sleep 6 and space for sleeping bags for an indefinate number of people (10-30). would expect a donation (which we would use to speed up the retreat house renovation
They can take money from political activists to renovate their property???
I STILL am trying to figure out how these people pay for food, travel, etc. Looking at the protest groups is looking at the real face of the democrat party. welfare "rights" groups, communists, druggies, parasites, sexual freaks. Yup, the best thing for the republicans is for these people to be loud, violent, and TELEVISED! I wan't the american people to see what sub-humans leftists are like, and what Kerry supports
"Small one-bedroom apartment available during the week of the RNC. I will be leaving town on Sunday or Monday for the remainder of the week, so the place will be yours when I leave, and before that you can stay in the living room. It would be good for a couple or a small (2-3) group of friends. The main thing will be that I have to trust the person, since I will be leaving them with all my worldly possessions, which are not that many, but still."
Knowing the mindset of most of these critters, I think the guy should expect that a few of his personal belongings will get 'liberated'. For the cause you know.
A lot of them are rich.
Mommy and Daddy's money.
Not a bad idea!
Anybody know Michael Moore's NY address?
What if your dog is a fascist? Terry McAullife's dog talks to him and I'm pretty sure that's where Bubba's bag man gets his fascist ideas.
The really embarassing part is that when they argue, the dog wins...
Can any of you even IMAGINE the smell of flop sweat in one of those hovels the night after a long day of heavy duty America hating on hot NYC streets???
Lord of The Dance talk about WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION!
RICO!!!SUAVE...!
SW
If I may offer a dissenting word...
I bet the sleeping accomidations for these travelers will work out well, with very few cases of theft from the hosts, or rude guests overstaying their welcome or such. It's simply no problem for hippies to shack up in a sleeping bag for the weekend. It's one of the things they do best.
And the young lad who is willing to sleep in doghouse, porch or backyard...this guy is traveling like a Navy SEAL, completely focused on getting the job done and willing to suffer whatever discomfort necessary to do so.
Let's not forget that about 45% of the country thinks the election was stolen. They may not like Kerry, or even think he's suitable for the job, but they are willing to do anything to get Bush out.
That said, someone needs to drop a dime on the pastor who has violated his church's tax-free status with the IRS. And about 40 other people need to offer imaginary accomidations to these protestors. Let 'em scramble to find a warm place to stash their stuff at the last minute. :)
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