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Breaking Down Barriers, with Humor

The following is the story of a few people who took a group of strangers and led them into friendly interaction, through humor.

The subway system in New York City is likely the busiest in the world; and yet, despite the variety and amount of people that get on and off the train every day, many people avoid making contact with one another. They simply want to ride to and from where they’re going, and be done with it. On February 2nd, 2002, a group of people decided they were going to break this routine by staging two surprise birthday parties on one of the trains (the number six train).

Entering the train at Brooklyn Bridge, they came with two long Happy Birthday signs, twenty birthday balloons, twenty-four party hats, thirty-five cupcakes, and sixteen noisemakers, along with a pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey game. Three of the friends were in charge of setting up the party, while seven others were supposed to act like strangers who didn’t know anyone else on the train (entering the train at different stops). When people started asking what the three friends were doing, they replied that they were throwing a surprise birthday party for their friend and asked for help with blowing up balloons. Both the pretend strangers and real strangers then began helping set up for the party.

Finally, the party-throwers got the attention of everyone in the car and told them they were throwing a surprise party for their friend Jesse and they needed everyone’s help. The friends started passing out party hats and noisemakers and, with the passengers in silence, Jesse entered the car to a loud “Surprise!” from people who neither knew him nor each other. Seconds later, they sang happy birthday, people clapped and blew their noisemakers, and started eating cupcakes together. A few of the pretend agents even started playing pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey. Jesse then ended with a thank-you speech. The second surprise party was even more festive, in that the friends got everyone in the car to crouch down before the birthday boy entered (the second birthday boy was named “Agent Richardson”).
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