When our turn came a couple hundred people moved slowly on the sidewalk next to the Javits Center until we got to a large entrance where everyone was diverted inside. Staff told us to have our tickets ready. All I had was my e-mailed confirmation, but I assumed that was a ticket. No one asked to see it. Inside the cavernous hall staff told people to split into blue tickets, yellow tickets and general admission. I didn't see anyone holding a blue or yellow ticket, but I figured I was general admission since all I had was an e-mail confirmation.
Thus split up, we were channeled into lines to go through security. I could see metal detectors off to one side, but my group was not directed to go there. We were split into ten lines. When I reached the front of mine, I was rather perfunctorily wanded. I wasn't sure why we got off so light, but I would find out shortly. From there we were directed out another entrance and back onto the same sidewalk next to the Javits Center. It seems our detour was just to go through security in a larger space. When we got back to 11th Ave. we were let loose into the street. There were no staff, or instructions, or signs, or anything to indicate where to go next. I walked down that street wondering we where we were supposed to go into the Javits Center.
The closer I got to 34th St. the thicker the crowd. There were barricades to keep us from going down any of the side streets to another Avenue, or to the area in front of the Javits Center itself. I passed food trucks where people stood in very long lines to buy food. In the distance was a Jumbotron with someone on the screen discussing the election returns, whose words could barely be heard. Around 36th St. people were packed too tightly to move. They occupied 11th Ave. from barricade to barricade. It seemed we were corralled on 11th Ave. with no place else to go and no one available to answer our questions.
I surmised we were supposed to watch and listen to the election returns on the Jumbotron while standing in the street. No one had warned me that that was all the general admission e-mail was good for. At least it wasn't cold, but I knew I couldn't stand for five hours in the street, and I couldn't even hear what the person on the screen was saying. At lot of others were grumbling, and some were calling friends to tell them not to come.
I went back to the opening where we had entered 11th Ave. but the cop wouldn’t let us go back toward 12th Ave. There was an opening to exit down 40th St. to 10th Ave. and a lot of people were going through it. They were warned by the cops that once they passed they couldn't return, at least not without retracing the path on the other side of the street from 10th Ave. to 12th Ave. and back through security. yhspite this warning, I didn't see anyone change their mind. There were a lot of unhappy campers on 11th Ave. They thought they were going to watch the election returns and party inside the Javits Center, not stand in the middle of 11th Ave. trying to hear a barely audible Jumbotron.
At some point I too gave up on the idea that I might get in and left. At home at least I could hear the returns and do it sitting down.
High expectations. Unexpected failure. A good metaphor for this entire election.
Instead of spending the night standing in the street, it looks like I will spend the next four years protesting in the streets.
©Jo Freeman for SeniorWomen.com
Jo Freeman's Convention Diary: Class and Culture at the Republican and Democratic Conventions - Walking around the conventions in Cleveland and Philadelphia one could see that there have been many changes in class and culture both inside and outside of the parties in the last fifty years. Many of you remember back in the ‘60s when those of us who marched for civil rights and against the war in Viet Nam were dismissed as bearded beatniks and hairy hippies by working class men. Now they've become what they said we were. more »
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