July 5, 2006
The Show After the Show
Just as last night's main fireworks show ended and hundreds of thousands of slowly headed home, District residents from Capitol Hill to Columbia Heights were treated to their own, secondary show. Pyrotechnic operators-in-training, many no older than the single digits, took to the streets of the District with fireworks of every type, turning street corners and public parks alike into their own personal playgrounds of color and noise. The shows went late into the night, as evidenced by the sulfurous clouds that hung low in many neighborhoods well past midnight. And while many of homegrown fireworkers seemed innocent enough, content with nothing more than the patriotic act of making a lot of noise, others were less well-meaning — fireworks were thrown in the direction of many a passerby, whether on foot or in car.
But such is the life in an urban environment. Does anyone have any particularly memorable experiences from the post-fireworks fireworks shows?
|
"...fireworks were thrown in the direction of many a passerby, whether on foot or in car.
But such is the life in an urban environment."
So we should expect assualt and battery with a deadly weapon and be OK with that?
I really wish adults would have more sense than to give children fireworks and not pay attention to how they are used. I was walking down 14th Street Monday night and kids were shooting them at people and buses. For the last couple of weeks, kids in my neighborhood were also putting lit fireworks in dumpsters--a huge fire hazard. I hate to sound like a crotchety old man, but sometimes I think DC laws need to be a little more stringent with fireworks.
Last year, heading down 295 was crazy, and hundreds of skyrockets exploded overhead...I liked it better than the Mall. This year the Mall was called off due to illness, but my neighborhood sound like a war zone...I loved it. By the way, where do you get those skyrockets?
I got dry humped at the L'Enfant metro stop waiting to go down the escalator.
Also, I'd like to thank the 20-something young lady who thought it was a good idea to sit on the floor of the Metro car right in front of the door even as we shuffled past her to get out of the near-capacity car. I believe I heard her say: "This probably wasn't the best idea"... but she still didn't get up off the ground. All I could think of is "Where is Wayne Rooney/Marcus Vick when you need them?"
My girlfriend and I were treated to a post Mall fireworks show visable from the window of our Mount Pleasant apartment window.
As we walked home we saw a few people camped alongside 16th street watching the "amatuer" fireworks. These were the cherry ontop of the sundae.
South of DC - I hope you 'accidentally' knocked into her head for me.
Had a great time watching the drunk guy at the street corner accidentally light his sweatshirt on fire and start screaming about the "Langoliers" (sp?) trying to get him...
Haha. The fireworks totally rocked - when they were launched by the neighborhood people. Probably less safe, but more fun. It's so egalitarian! I blogged about this, too...
I blew a good chunk of my thumb off with a 'firecracker bomb' when I was nine. Does that count as a post-fireworks fireworks shows?
Despite one bad event (it healed nicely, thanks for asking) I think it's great when people celebrate the 4th with their own shows. It goes back to what the Founders wanted us to do on the 4th. I think we should be more liberal with fireworks laws and do more to encourage private displays on the 4th of July.
The big event on the Mall is great, but corporate sponsored events shouldn't be all that we get to see.
TC
"...fireworks were thrown in the direction of many a passerby, whether on foot or in car.
But such is the life in an urban environment."
Yes, we should just expect lawlessness because we live in a city. I mean, why try to even enforce any law?
Firecrackers are illegal, they injure kids, and they disturb the peace. Is it too much to ask that a couple cruisers patrol each quadrant on the 4th and break up/confiscate amateur fireworks?
I live in northern columbia heights... I sat on the neighboring rowhouse's garage and had a 360 show of fireworks, including the tip top of the fireworks on the mall. It was lovely.
We stopped by the Church of Scientology on 19th Street, NW right before the fireworks and conveniently took their house tour as the works began. Turns out they have a pretty nice view from their balcony.
Driving down my street in Alexandria, the car in the lane next to me was throwing lit firecrackers out of the windows of the car. Talk about unsafe.
I saw a guy I gave a dollar to last week setting of some kind of firework that I bet cost at least 75 dollars. So glad I could help him out with that.
Yesterday, the post fireworks fireworks were fun... however, at the corner of clifton and 13th there was a bunch of dumb drunk adults (20 somethings) mishandling rockets and unsafely throwing them around children... At some point some kids approached them to tell them not to explode them in their hand or throw them randomly.
"Driving down my street in Alexandria, the car in the lane next to me was throwing lit firecrackers out of the windows of the car. Talk about unsafe."
What i wouldn't have given to see one explode INSIDE the car. Its people like this that are reason all the good fireworks are illegal in most states.
In the immortal words of the Apu look-alike from that one episode of The Simpsons where Lisa gets popular, "What can be a better way to celebrate the birth of our nation than to blow a small piece of it up?"
I'm glad so many people were amused by excessive and sociopathic behavior tolerated by the city and some of its residents. The sulfurous cloud which enveloped my Cap Hill home looked like Beirut circa 1981. The barrage of noise kept my infant child up crying til 2am. What a great way to attract families to the District.
Even if you're a dedicated urbanite largely willing to put up with the bullshit of this holiday, how is it "egalitarian" or even acceptable to be a public nuisance until the wee hours of the morning?
I lived in Valencia, Spain for a couple of years. There's a pyrotechnics-heavy festival there, las fallas, that runs for a couple of weeks. The entire month leading up to the festival, the entire city looks and sounds like a warzone, with kids and adults alike doing very irresponsible things with disturbingly large fireworks. The nightly sanctioned shows are an hour long. You spend a month dodging firecrackers being thrown at you, especially as a foreigner. But for the most part it's all in good fun, and not too many people get hurt...badly.
What we had last night was really not that chaotic. There was a fair bit of stupid nonsense, but i was glad to see the city enjoying a bit of chaos and fun. Lord knows we need it.
an infant baby being kept up till 2am by fireworks on the 4th of July? Good gracious.
Is this the first time said baby has had trouble sleeping? I'm guessing you can handle it.
I found the street fireworks to be a nice pause from the gunshots that usually wake me up in the middle of the night. The police should give the neighborhood hoodlums fireworks to set year-round to distract them from their usual repertoire of random shootings and drug deals
It's not that I'm not all for (safe) local fireworks action. But I nearly leveled a bottle rocket myself at the complete f*** underneath my window singing "O Canada" at the top of his lungs until 12:30 in the morning.
I can't believe that privately owned fireworks are allowed in DC-- they are illegal in many states! You would think that in a place where people literally live right on top of each other and kids have minimal supervisions, that the government would not allow private citizens to set off explosives...
Question: "Even if you're a dedicated urbanite largely willing to put up with the bullshit of this holiday, how is it "egalitarian" or even acceptable to be a public nuisance until the wee hours of the morning?"
Answer: IT THE 4th of JULY!
Also see every other independence celebrations on the planet. I hate to see you on Christmas morning, I bet you yell at kids for getting up too early.
I agree, shelley, it's nice to know for certain that the booms in the night are fireworks and not something worse, they usually are gunshots.
I find the neighborhood fireworks kind of charming, but then I grew up in a city where people indiscriminately fired real weapons into the air on all major holidays. And major NBA finals wins. So I guess I'm inured to somewhat dangerous forms of celebration.
My friends and I were nearly victims of a "drive-by" firecrackering on 8th Street on the Hill last night. They missed us, we were ripped anyway, and instead of being scared, we hooted in delight while waving the red white and blue.
I used to live in a high-rise on the Southwest Waterfront...I faced south, so I could only see the Mall fireworks as reflected in the windows across the street, but I had a big picture window so I could look out over the horizon and see more than 30 fireworks displays going on at once, from SW all the way to PG County. It was amazing.
Now I'm in Columbia Heights, where I don't have quite the sweeping panorama, but still no shortage of fireworks. Everyone was setting them off...in the street, the sky, the lawns, the high school. Many were spectacular, many held up traffic for blocks, and many were duds, but it was fun just the same. A different kind of fun...not as spectacular, but it felt like a great big neighborhood party for the Fourth, which is pretty nice.
Mt. Pleasant was nice and alive as I walked home from watching the show at Meridian St Park. I really enjoyed it quite frankly. I'm not so happy that people were throwing them into the streets, but that behaviour seemd pretty contained to one group of kids on a side street. Other than that, it was mostly ground displays in Lamont Plaza, which was quite a lot of fun. Smoke and flashes everywhere.
As long as nobody gets hurt, it's fair game. Of course, I'm used to my friends and I setting off about $150 worth at each other during high school. Yea, it was noisy, but seriously- you live in Washington DC. It's the capital. It's the 4th of July. It'd absolutley fucking suck if there weren't fireworks. Dont like it? Move so SoHoNo.
I lived in Valencia, Spain for a couple of years.
It's not just Las Fallas. Other excuses for young Catalans and Castilians to make things go boom at all hours of the night: San Fermin, Real Madrid victories, FC Barcelona victories, weddings, funerals, local fiestas and festas, boredom, employment, unemployment, machismo, San Miguel, and the presence of British / American / German tourists anywhere within earshot.
First of all , 99% of the fireworks in question are entirely illegal in DC (sale, posession and use) DC just chooses not to enforce its laws.
For all the incessant bitching we hear on this site about illegal church parking and quality of life issues, it's amazing how many people are so quick to ignore the law and defend a childish indulgence most of us outgrew in our teens or never developed at all. Think Beavis and Butthead. And if I was lighting them deep into the night, my parents would not have let me live to see adulthood.
"Even if you're a dedicated urbanite largely willing to put up with the bullshit of this holiday, how is it "egalitarian" or even acceptable to be a public nuisance until the wee hours of the morning?"
Waaaah!
It's ONE night a year. Find some other, worthier cause to rage against.
Yes, it's illegal, but dang, it was pretty.
I lived in Oslo, Norway for three years back in the '80s where the New Year celebration is saluted with an awesome display of private and government-sponsored firework displays.
Truly breathtaking if seen from an elevated viewpoint. Unfortunately, the pale comparison that I witnessed last night in Woodbridge - accompanied by the car stereo blasting hiphop - left me longing for sweet strings of the N. Symphony.
Blame John Adams, our second president, who wrote "[Independence Day] ought to be solemnized with pomp and parade, with shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires, and illuminations, from one end of this continent to the other, from this time forward for evermore."
whining about fireworks is even more pathetic than whining about double-parking ;)
"Even if you're a dedicated urbanite largely willing to put up with the bullshit of this holiday, how is it "egalitarian" or even acceptable to be a public nuisance until the wee hours of the morning?"
Get over your over-inflated sense of self! The Fourth of July is about fireworks and noise. If you want to live in an area where noise won't wake your kid up, may I suggest West Virginia? Jeeez. Some people will bitch and moan about anything.
Some people will bitch and moan about anything.
Including, apparently, the fact that anyone has the nerve to express an alternate, less fireworks-friendly opinion.
Fireworks aren't a problem until you have a ton of them being set off in your neighbor's yard, detonated by people who are only semi-responsible for their actions when they're NOT drunk. Hey now, I have my car and peace of mind down in that battle zone...
Funny thing you say TC... WV is the last place a "dedicated" urbanite would want to be on the 4th of July.. hell my friend built and blew up a pipe bomb in my backyard during high school (for a school video) and got nary a complaint.
Of course, most people probably thought it was someone hunting, but the point is, um.. explosions are cool, Beavis
Anyone that thinks 4th of July lasts "one day" probably lives well outside of DC. In Shaw where I live the "4th of July" runs from about July 1st to July 8th from roughly 10PM until 3AM.. I would be all on favor if it was just one day, but it sounds like operation Iraqi freedom outside my window for at least a week.