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The more I think about it, the stranger it seems. There were lots of strange things that led up to the Be-In, and not just the Be-In that happened in San Francisco the previous January.
For one thing, radio station WBAI had a history of organizing what we now would call "flash mobs". I think it was Steve Post or Bob Fass on their late night shows. Starting with "Lets all meet at Kennedy airport international arrivals and greet the travelers coming home", it became "Lets all be in Central Park on Easter Sunday". At least, that's how I found out about the event, I think.
Also, if I recall, the winter of 1966-67 was particularly dark, cold, and snowy. And, according to some of the articles I found in the NYTimes archive, March started out with unseasonably Spring like weather that suddenly reverted back to cold and snow. So the glorious weekend of March 26 seemed like a gift! And maybe the start of a real Spring!
Here's what Weinraub said in his Monday article in the Times:
"The Be-In" was organized two weeks ago, after a San Francisco "Be-In" attracted more than 100,000 persons on Jan 14. The four chief organizers were James Fouratt, an actor; Paul Williams, the editor of "Crawdaddy," an Existential rock 'n' roll magazine; Susan Hartnett, the administrator of a group called Experiments in Art and Technology, Inc., and Claudio Badal, a poet-playwright from Chile. The Police and Parks Departments cooperated.
"We wanted to be a celebration of being alive, of having that experience in the part," Mr. Fouratt said. "People in New York don't look at each other, don't see each other, don't talk to each other."
"This is one time they could do all that without being up tight or afraid, an affirmation of love and happiness."
The four organizers raised $250 for advertising posters that began appearing in Greenwich Village, the East Village and Harlem. Two newspapers -- The Village Voice and The East Village Other -- and radio station WBAI-FM also advertised the "Be-In," but word of mouth was the major reason for yesterday's turnout." (NYTimes March 27, 1967, p24)
So the dynamics were in place forty years before cell phones, email, and instant messaging.
