8
Jan/16

THE NO PANTS SUBWAY RIDE

8
Jan/16

Multiple locations
Sunday, January 10, $2.75 (subway fare), 3:00-5:00
improveverywhere.com

A few weeks ago, it looked like this year’s No Pants Subway Ride would be no big deal, as it felt like spring outside. The temperature has soared downward since then, but it’s expected to be back up to fifty-one degrees on Sunday, with rain, for the fifteenth annual event, in which New Yorkers head underground in their boxers, panties, and tighty-whities. Started as a prank by seven guys in 2002, the ride — staged by Improv Everywhere, the group behind such other unusual events as Reverse Times Square, Car Alarm Symphony in Staten Island, and Carousel Horse Race in Bryant Park — hit a small bump in 2006, when 150 people participated and 8 were arrested and handcuffed, but the charges were shortly dismissed. As it turns out, it’s technically not illegal as long as the exposure doesn’t get too indecent. (Of course, we have also recently discovered that it is not against the law for women to be topless in Times Square.) Participants should gather, with their clothes on, at one of seven meeting points around the city (Hoyt Playground in Astoria, the Old Stone House in Brooklyn, Foley Square in Downtown Manhattan, Sara D. Roosevelt Park on the Lower East Side, the Unisphere in Flushing Meadows Park, the Great Hill in Central Park, and Maria Hernandez Park in Bushwick); the main rule is that you must be willing to take your pants off on the subway while keeping a straight face — and hopefully having someone around to document it for social media. (You should not document it yourself, and you need to act like you merely forgot to put your pants on and that it is a coincidence so many others did as well.) When it’s over at about five o’clock, you should head over to the after-party at Webster Hall ($10 in advance, $15 at the door, 4:15 – 12 midnight), keeping your pants off (pants check is available); the festivities include DJs Dirtyfinger, Shakey, Dirty Stay Out, Jason Smith, Chris Landry, and SPLURT, live performances by the Flying Pants Brigade, the Gnomes, Helgatude, and AgroAcro, art installations by Chelsea and Melissa Brankx, Jaclyn Atkinson, and Lindsay Arden, performance art by YSLauran and Piñata Party, and more. And it should be comforting to know that the No Pants Subway Ride has spread to dozens of cities across the globe, including Adelaide, Berlin, Copenhagen, Helsinki, Hong Kong, Jerusalem, Madrid, Prague, Stockholm, and Vancouver.