10,000 In Park; One Beats Oil Drum

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31329, 28 March 1967, Page 2

10,000 In Park; One Beats Oil Drum

(N.Z.P.A.-Reuter— Copyright) NEW YORK, March 27. Beatniks, housewives, college girls and businessmen joined hands in a giant “love circle” and pranced around Central Park yesterday. It was part of a “be-in,” the latest craze among New Yorkers. Families out for a stroll in the Easter sun, looked on amazed as 10,000 “be-in” devotees swarmed into the park to stage their mass “happening,” in which people do whatever they feel like doing. An art student, Ron Patterson, who spent three hours beating an oil drum with tree branches, broke off to declare: "The original theme was love

and peace. Now it’s all just a big noise, man.”

An artist who had been daubed with white grease paint by another artist during the unrehearsed get-together, said blissfully: “Anything that’s nice and happy is part of a be-in.” While about 1000 followers of the craze performed their love-circle antics, others played a variety of musical instruments or paraded in fancy costumes and painted faces. Another group sat puffing pipes charged with banana peel—described as the latest substitute for marijuana or L.S.D. The police, who kept a watchful but tolerant eye on the day-long proceedings, stepped in when one man in the crowd started peeling off his clothes.