Long Island Tea Party Times and Places: Glenn Reynolds on the Parties

Places and times for Tea Parties.
The National Map of Parties

For a Complete List for New York.

More Information for Long Island:

City: Eastern Long Island
When: April 15, 12:00 pm - 3:00 pm
Where: East Hampton (NY) City Hall then to 3-Mile Harbor (City Pier), 159 Pantigo Road
Contact: EMAIL
Other Info:
Facebook Group: Click Here

City: Hauppague
When: April 15, 5:30pm
Where: Korean War Memorial, 100 Veterans Memorial Highway, #3
Suffolk County Dennison Building
Contact: EMAIL
Other Info:
Facebook Group: Coming Soon

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City: Hicksville, Long Island
When: April 15, 5:30pm - 8:00pm
Where: Broadway Mall
Contact: EMAIL
Other Info: Click Here
Facebook Group: Coming Soon

City: Massapequa
When: April 15, 4:00pm - 6:00pm
Where: Massapequa Train Station on the Sunrise Hwy side
Contact: EMAIL
Other Info: Click Here
Facebook Group: Coming Soon!

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City: Medford
When: April 15, Noon
Where: The wedge across from Tremont Elementrary School
Contact: EMAIL
Other Info:
Facebook Group:

City: Riverhead
When: April 15, 7:00pm - 9:00pm
Where: Riverhead Riverfront (behind the east end Arts Council in downtown Riverhead)
Contact: EMAIL
Other Info:
Meet-up Group: Click Here

City: Sag Harbor
When: 12:00 p.m. until ….
Where: Long Wharf
Contact:EMAIL

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City: Smithtown
When: April 15th, 5:00 pm - 7:00 pm+
Where: on Route 347 & Moriches Rd (west of Toys R Us)
Contact: EMAIL

So who's behind the Tax Day tea parties? Ordinary folks who are using the power of the Internet to organize. For a number of years, techno-geeks have been organizing "flash crowds" -- groups of people, coordinated by text or cellphone, who converge on a particular location and then do something silly, like the pillow fights that popped up in 50 cities earlier this month. This is part of a general phenomenon dubbed "Smart Mobs" by Howard Rheingold, author of a book by the same title, in which modern communications and social-networking technologies allow quick coordination among large numbers of people who don't know each other.

In the old days, organizing large groups of people required, well, an organization: a political party, a labor union, a church or some other sort of structure. Now people can coordinate themselves.

We saw a bit of this in the 2004 and 2008 presidential campaigns, with things like Howard Dean's use of Meetup, and Barack Obama's use of Facebook. But this was still social-networking in support of an existing organization or campaign. The tea-party protest movement is organizing itself, on its own behalf. Some existing organizations, like Newt Gingrich's American Solutions and FreedomWorks, have gotten involved. But they're involved as followers and facilitators, not leaders. The leaders are appearing on their own, and reaching out to others through blogs, Facebook, chat boards and alternative media

The protests began with bloggers in Seattle, Wash., who organized a demonstration on Feb. 16. As word of this spread, rallies in Denver and Mesa, Ariz., were quickly organized for the next day. Then came CNBC talker Rick Santelli's Feb. 19 "rant heard round the world" in which he called for a "Chicago tea party" on July Fourth. The tea-party moniker stuck, but angry taxpayers weren't willing to wait until July. Soon, tea-party protests were appearing in one city after another, drawing at first hundreds, and then thousands, to marches in cities from Orlando to Kansas City to Cincinnati.

As word spread, people got interested in picking a common date for nationwide protests, and decided on today, Tax Day, as the date. As I write this, various Web sites tracking tea parties are predicting anywhere between 300 and 500 protests at cities around the world. A Google Map tracking planned events, maintained at the FreedomWorks.org Web site, shows the United States covered by red circles, with new events being added every day.

The movement grew so fast that some bloggers at the Playboy Web site -- apparently unaware that we've entered the 21st century -- suggested that some secret organization must be behind all of this. But, in fact, today's technology means you don't need an organization, secret or otherwise, to get organized. After considerable ridicule, the claim was withdrawn, but that hasn't stopped other media outlets from echoing it.

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