Folks were living large in gilded-age style — though one suspects that Prohibition was not rigorously enforced.
BY COLIN MIXSON
Old sports and bearcats from throughout the city grabbed their straw boaters and belted on their Oxford bags for the city’s finest prohibition-era sockdollager since the end of Prohibition!
It’s the people watching that draws Stacey Greenberger every year.
The two-day Jazz Age Lawn Party saw Governors Island filled with horn-tootin’ orchestras and Peabody dance routines ripped straight from the 1920s, and while the sights and sounds of yesteryear were in and of themselves intoxicating, it was the 21st century characters that made the event one of the hottest tickets in town, according to one Kings County sheba.
“It’s the absolutely best people watching of the whole city of the whole year,” said Stacey Greenberger, who traveled from Brooklyn to jazz it up on Governors Island.
The 12-year-running, weekend-long, island soiree helped spearhead the national “retro nouveau” jazz scene when it debuted in 2005.
But where other era-inspired events focus mainly on the music and dance, the Jazz Age Lawn Party remains one of the major events encapsulating the fashion of the roaring ’20s — Gatsby-era cosplay.
“I think the fashion is definitely one of the most important parts of the Jazz Age Lawn Party,” said Queens tomato Ashley Campana. “It’s a huge fashion event.”
And the imersion among cheek flappers and straw-hatted fops making whoopee with cocktails in hand and jazz in the air feels like a vision ripped straight out of time, according to Greenberger.
“You feel like you’re walking onto a movie set,” she said.
The event featured performances from jazz ensembles and period dance troupes, including Michael Arenella and his Dreamland Orchestra, Drew Nugent and the Midnight Society, Roddy Caravella and the Canarsie Wobblers, Queen Esther, Peter Mintun, Gelber and Manning, and the Dreamland Follies.
Saturday, the more crowded and boisterous of the two-day affair, was dedicated to the Charleston style of dance, while Sunday was reserved for the Peabody, with instructions given at the beginning of both days intended to transform the crowd of contemporary dewdroppers into regular old Oliver twists.
And, throughout the event, there wasn’t a wurp or bluenose in sight, according to Campana, who said the scene is practically communal with chipper, if zozzled music lovers.
“I think just the energy is really awesome,” she said. “People picnic and share food with people they haven’t met, and take pictures with people they don’t know. It’s an opportunity to meet and connect with people you wouldn’t normally meet. Plus the music’s awesome.”
If you missed last weekend’s dapper affair, fear not, for the Jazz Age Lawn Party is set to return the weekend of Aug. 26 for the razziest blow since the 21st Amendment.
Really retro, or fashion forward? A few fun-loving flappers make the scene at the Jazz Age Lawn Party on Governors Island.
