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Published on 4/7/08
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In the culty 1979 film masterpiece The Warriors, rival gangs from all over the city battle for supremacy in a bleak Hobbesian nightmare of what New York could have become. Fortunately, we kind of went the other way as a community, and this week’s Battle for Manhattan—in its inaugural year and spanning a 20-day period—uses volleyballs instead of broken bottles and running shoes instead of zip guns (not to mention basketballs and soccer balls).
One of the organizers of the event, Steve Bernstein of local music promotional and publishing company Zenbu Media, explains: “We’re really excited about it. This is something we hope to make an annual event. This year we’re going with soccer, basketball, a 5k run and volleyball. As time goes on, things like kickball, dodgeball and darts will be added—basically any manner of competition. We’re trying to make it fun, raise money for charity [Urban Dove—a New York organization aimed at helping at-risk youth; urbandove.org] and make it a much bigger thing in the future. But we thought to keep it contained for the first year to get it right.”
The West team consists of residents of the island west of Fifth Avenue (above 14th Street) or west of Broadway (below 14th); the East squad covers denizens of the other side of the borough. (Bernstein suggests that participants use current residence as a frame of reference, rather than place of business, favorite drinking nabe or place of birth—although residents from outside the borough are welcome to use such secondary criteria to pick a side). Winners of each game acquire 100 points for their team, and the half with the highest point total at the conclusion has bragging rights for the rest of the year.
Luminaries from the world of athletics serve as “chairmen” for each sport, while also participating in an effort to secure victory and glory for their constituents. Former Knick John Starks is cochair of basketball along with streetball star Escalade, Hall of Fame forward Eric Wynalda chairs soccer, Dain Blanton heads up volleyball, and Olympic gold medalist and 400m hurdles world-record holder Kevin Young is head of the 5k competition. Participants have a chance to mingle with these august athletes in a variety of social events (details of which can be found on the official website, battleformanhattan.com) leading up to the actual Battle.
Young seems ready to get out there and make the East’s case. “I just got a new pair of sneakers, so you know I’m ready,” he tells us, and not without a sense of urgency. “Remember in Die Hard when Sam Jackson and Bruce Willis were running to all the different statues in Central Park, answering phone calls? That keeps running through my head. I just want to get out there and run through the city.”
The 5k that Young is so eager to tackle doubles as the debut event. The starting gun sounds at 10am on Sunday 30 at Pier 46 in Hudson River Park. After the run, teams for the individual sports will be formed and allotted practice times at local gyms from Monday 31 through April 4, and games will be played at a variety of locations (three spots each for East and West) Tuesday 1 through April 18. Interested parties can either sign up alone or as a team with their mates. The $30 registration fee, in addition to earning a competitor a spot in one sport and helping out Urban Dove, nets each athlete a T-shirt and entrance to related parties (it’s $15 per additional sport). That memorable cinematic battle cry rings just as true today as it did in ’79: “Warriors, come out to play-yay!”
Registration for the Battle for Manhattan runs through Mar 28, 2008 at battleformanhattan.com.
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