USA: A few hundred New Yorkers come together in a massive, public pillow fight

New Yorkers brought forth their inner child with vengeance in a massive public pillow fight in the heart of the city. Hundreds gathered to take part, pounding each other with soft pillows, and enveloped by a cloud of fluffy feathers shining in the sun. Spring is around the corner in New York City, and on Saturday (February 24), in what seemed like a an urban Spring ritual of sorts, hordes of New Yorkers came together for a massive, free for all, public pillow fight. As the sun shone down brightly on Manhattan's Union Square on Saturday afternoon before the beginning of the fight, New Yorkers began arriving with pillows of all kinds of colors and sizes. Some stood around sharing pillow fight tactics with friends, others were busy fluffing up their pillows with soft tissue. "You can just hit someone and it's a pillow, it's not like you're hitting with your fist. It's just plain old fun, it's something that you do when you're a kid. I'm going to be graduating from high school this year and I'm in New York City having a pillow fight. It's something that I never thought I'd be doing, and I'm doing it," said Sam Rettig, who was looking forward to taking part in a public pillow fight for the first time. When the whistle blew to signal the beginning of the pillow fight, the participants immediately began wielding their pillows with a sudden outflow of aggression. Mini-fights broke out amidst the larger circle of pillow-fighting. Monica Schorm, a student at New York University, banged her pillow on an accompanying friend's head, and later explained how the pillow fight was a wonderful opportunity for career-driven, always busy New Yorkers to let loose. "I think New York is such a career driven kind of sophisticated city that it's so nice to have the opportunity to act like a kid again. And it's a good way to come back down to the imagination that first drew you to the city," said Schorm. As pillow fighters swung and whacked away at each other, a cloud of pillow feathers enveloped them. Most agreed that the pillow fight was an opportunity to let out their inner child and to release aggression. Steve Delitta, who works in New York City, fought away with his face covered by a black mask and said that it brought back childhood memories. "I haven't had a pillow fight in years and this is great -- it's bringing back childhood memories. Nobody is getting hurt either, I've been fighting for fifteen minutes now, and I don't have a bruise, I haven't fallen yet. It's great. It's a great idea," said Delitta. The public pillow fight idea originates from the duo of Lori Kufner and Kevin Bracken who have a website called "Newmindspace", where they announce outlandish all-ages free events like subway car parties, massive bubble battles and giant games of capture the flag on city streets. These events are held across cities in the United States and Canada. The rules for the Union Square pillow fight were simple -- people were encouraged to swing lightly and swinging at people without pillows and with cameras was discouraged. But at the pat center of the pillow fight maelstrom, the swing lightly rule seemed to fly away with the feathers emerging from the spent pillows, as New Yorkers beat away their winter blues.

ITN Source | March 2, 2007

Tags:. .spent. .either. .urban. .pat. .imagination