The Warriors Scavenger Hunt

I was 11 or 12 years old when I first saw The Warriors. Released in 1979, it was broadcast on the local New York channel, WPIX 11, I believe. The curse words were crudely dubbed. The fight scenes – especially the park fight with the Baseball Furies and the subway bathroom brawl with The Punks – were clumsily edited. Yet, I was enthralled. The Warriors provided two important things for me at that tender age: 1) it helped establish my love for movies; 2) it deepened the mystery and allure of those other Boros – Manhattan, Brooklyn, The Bronx – that this youngster in the outer reaches of Queens had yet to experience. The Warriors quest to return to their Coney Island home through the rough and tumble – and colorful – late 1970’s New York captured my imagination and strengthened my love of movies and of the city that has been my home all my life (that young Queens kid now residing in a not so rough and tumble Manhattan).

Yesterday, I participated in a Warriors Scavenger Hunt, sponsored by Netflix and Alamo Drafthouse , part of their summer Rolling Roadshow. Each team chose a gang from The Warriors and wore that gang’s colors. We were the Turnbull AC’s, those “lousy skinhead fucks” in Ajax’s memorable and apt description.

The gangs met at Riverside Park, where Cyrus’ conclave was filmed. We were given a CD containing clues, which, when solved, would tell us what to do next. We started out going in the wrong direction looking for the Soldiers monument in the park. Once we got our bearings, we spent some time fiddling with math questions and counting cannonballs and adding regiment numbers carved in stone. Then our one big gaffe happened. The clue spoke of a gang called the Hip Po’s. We needed to find hippo icons and count them. We got ahead of ourselves and ventured down to the American Museum of Natural History, thinking that hippos were part of the stone menagerie out front. We were wrong. No hippos there. We soon found out about a Hippo Park in Riverside Park – just 2 blocks from where we had left. We doubled back quickly. We had lost about 40 minutes on the wild goose chase. But to our surprise, other gangs were still working out the earlier clues. We were still in good shape we thought. We soldiered on with the hunt. We hit our spots. We took the photos for bonus points. We sweated through our vests on the hottest day of the year. We regretted none of it.

Finally, we ended up on a subway to Coney Island. Two other gangs were on the same subway, a few cars ahead of us. Fortunately for us, our gang consisted of Coney Island veterans. They knew a faster way to get to our next checkpoint – the Shoot the Freak boardwalk attraction. We jumped off the subway the stop before Stillwell Avenue, ran across the footbridge on Surf Avenue and down the boardwalk. We beat the Satan’s Mothers, the Jones Street Boys and High Hats. We shot the freak and went to the final checkpoint. We were the sixth team to check-in. We had all of the bonus photos save one. We were told we took the most photos. This gave us hope. We could erase our lost time. We waited for the results.

But first, the screening of The Warriors. Or, rather, first was our rap. Another bonus was for each gang to compose a rap and some dance moves. Calvin and Eric wrote the rhymes, Calvin MCed, and we all made turns during the chorus of “Turn, Turn Turnbulls AC’s”. Then the screening. It was great fun watching this classic movie in the shadow of the Cyclone and the Wonder Wheel. The crowd loved it. Everyone hooted and hollered at every Warriors victory. Lines were said along with the characters. A great summer evening experience.

Oh, yeah, we also finished in Third place. Not bad for a bunch of lousy skinhead fucks.