Liveblogging the Mifflin Street Block Party
We are going to attempt to do some liveblogging of the Mifflin Street Block Party and other events happening downtown this weekend. We might be having to depend on the not-always-reliable madcitybroadband so we're not sure how well its going to work out. Click below the fold to find links to our coverage including video and photo galleries.
Last updated: 11:23 p.m. (Sunday)
Mifflin Street Block Party 2006 started out slow with empty streets up until about noon. As of 1:45 PM the street is getting crowded with several thousand partygoers. A light rain started around 1:30 but no one seems to really have noticed. The police are in good spirits (as of now) and they are kindly leading the arrestees to the holding area in the parking lot next to the Kohl Center.
There are around 5-6 houses with live music and the obligatory blasting of stereos. The parking lot on the south side of the 500 block has a stage worth checking out. We will post schedules if we can find them.
We are setting up several pages with photos that will be linked to from this page so that we don't clutter up the front page and create long load times. High-resolution photos will be posted to the Dane101 Flickr photostream later tonight. We will also have audio and video of the event at some point. Photos by Mark Sadowski and Shane Wealti.
Mifflin Photo Gallery 1
Mifflin Photo Gallery 2
Video Clip 1
Video Clip 2
Flickr Photoset
Brief note: Did you hear about the baby alligator?
Others on Mifflin:
Wisconsin State Journal has some numbers:
Police said 267 people were arrested and 14 jailed, most for drinking offenses, by 8 p.m. The party began to break up and police opened the street around 6:40 p.m.
ABC 27 has the arrests as of 6 p.m.:
little more then 200 people were arrested at the annual block party. Madison Police said forty-eight percent were UW students and fifty-two percent were non-UW students. Police Chief Noble Wray said even though the turnout was less, arrests were slightly up.
For people arrested for underage drinking the fine is one-hundred and seventy-six dollars.
...we are all terribly proud that our alma mater parties harder than any other school in the country. But after seeing about the 27th guy come through my co-worker's line at work and hit on her (I was bagging, thus witness to it), I'm feeling quite a bit of Schadenfreude about the horrible cold rain that has driven them all indoors.
Dial F for Fay (post includes pictures):
about two blocks long and spills over into the neighboring blocks. There were many people all over the place and even more rubbish strewn about. All day long today it's been drizzling so we just walked from one end to the other and back. Although there is much inebriation, I did not take part. Even now, I can hear the music, people, and sirens from the party.
Drunken people are wandering everywhere in the cold muddy rain while cops survey the area, and pose for a few pictures with the drunken youth. The mood is of chaos and laughter and impulse; getting away from real life as quickly as possible. Why do the college-educated youth of America seek to escape from the "real" world they are soon destined to enter. Undoubtedly, knowledge is a massive burden, but I happen to know for a fact that many of these particular youths are not even questioning the true nature of the field, business, corporation, society, body politic, etc. that they are about to enter.
Stellarue is one of the few that knows the history of the party:
If I'm not mistaken, the Block Party originated as a Vietnam protest perpetuated by the Mifflin Co-Op. Politics play no such role in the motives now, which consists of getting belligerently drunk in the student ghetto and police using Metro buses as paddy wagons.
Comments from one of the arrested:
brandon got picked out by an officer and started getting arrested. i went back to ask what was going on, and then i got handcuffed and arrested too. -open alcohol containers in the street- we were their symbols of matching uniformed power. a few hours later we were free and $300 poorer. keep in mind brandon and i are much poor enough without help from little dickheads in black sneakers. brandon never even sipped his drinking and blew 0.00. i had half of mine and blew 0.01. fuckers.
It's time again to carpet bomb Mifflin!
...and uNtItLeD undecided has a poem written during her first Mifflin, head over to her blog to read it.
that's incredibly exciting
that's incredibly exciting
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