This weekend was the HOWL Festival in Tompkins Square Park.

HOWL started with a lot of good rhetoric about highlighting and helping sustain the creative arts and community organizations of the East Village/Lower East side.

Part of the event, Art Around the Park, is far older than HOWL itself. It was initially an action, 19 years ago, in protest of the continued closure of Tompkins Square. Since no one could be in the park, canvases were hung on the 10 foot high fence surrounding the park and artists invited to do what they wanted to.

At the first HOWL festival, there were tables for dozens of community organizations; there were a lot of vendors selling stuff that you don't usually find at a street festival. No plastic crap -- the works of local artists and craftspeople, fair trade goods made by cooperatives around the globe. The lucky proximate placement of the ABC No Rio table and Shop Just (now The Greenery) is somewhat responsible for bringing me and Jenna together for our first conversations -- a couple years later we were planning our wedding.

This year it was a shadow of its former self. Art around only about 40% of the park; the music was not really very good; there were about 5 vendors and 6 community groups tabling. Maybe next year it will find some of its old spirit again.