Edelstein: Vibe was different, end tragic, future murky
I woke up early Sunday morning, made some coffee, went outside, went online and … Goddamnit. That’s the first word that popped in my head, and I imagine it was the first word that popped in many of our heads when we heard about the mass shooting at Art All Night. Art All Night is supposed to be the oasis in the city, the one place where the sometime violent nights of Trenton are replaced with 24 hours of county-wide smiles and love.
But not at 2:45 a.m. Sunday morning when one person was killed and 22 others injured when at least two people decided to start shooting their guns. (At the time of this writing, the dead person is one of the shooters, according to the Mercer County Prosecutor’s Office, and the other shooter is in critical condition. All others hospitalized, including a 13-year-old previously listed as critical, are now stable.)
“I’m kind of in shock,” said local graffiti artist and muralist Leon Rainbow.
Rainbow was outside in the alley where the murals were being displayed. He said he didn’t see the first shots fired, but he heard them.
“I just started running, everyone was running. I ducked in to where they were doing the glass blowing, near the middle of the building where there is an entrance and an exit,” he said. “I saw one guy come out of the building, bleeding from his back. He had been shot. No one knew where the shots were coming from.”
Rainbow, who’s been showing his art at Art All Night since the debut of the event 12 years ago, said the juju was different on the grounds of Roebling Wire Works this year.
“There were a lot people, more than in years past,” he said. “A lot of younger people who were more interested in hanging out than in the artwork. A lot of drinking and smoking outside.”
Rainbow said the crowd outside got so large police kept attempting to break it up, including bringing dogs in sometime during the midnight hour in an effort to keep people moving along.
“It felt different this year,” he said. “So many people showing up, hanging around. It was a weird vibe.”
A vibe that ended with over a thousand people running for their lives, a shooter dead, and four other people clinging to life.
Of course, a huge question now looms over Art All Night. Will it be back?
It damn well better, you ask me. One bad apple, can’t let the bad guys win, all the regular platitudes. And while I wasn’t able to talk to Joseph Kuzemka, the maestro of the event, he did post on the Art All Night Facebook page that he and his group are “very shocked. We’re deeply saddened. Our hearts ache and our eyes are blurry but our dedication and resolve to building a better Trenton through community, creativity and inspiration will never fade. Not tonight. Not ever.”
But even Rainbow — who lives and breathes in the middle of the Venn diagram that is “Trenton” and “art” — admits the event will be different in coming years.
“I hope it doesn’t end, but it definitely will never be the same,” he said. “They’re going to have to have so much more security, adjust the schedule. I’ll be back, absolutely. But it’s so sad to me. This was the one banner, positive event we have and now it’s spoiled. No matter what we do, are people going to come back?”
That last bit there? Will people come back? It’s a terrible, valid, painful, honest question.