…Continued  (Photos by Tod Seelie)

So you follow the rainbow down the street, around the corner, across the road, around the block, down the way, and finally up the ramp of the Williamsburg Bridge, where Agent Blu awaits. Slowly, one by one, 29 others join you at the top of the ramp where you stay until agent Blue sends you over to Agent Verde, (Nathan) who waits, posted mid-bridge across from the gates under the towers. Agent Indigo stands around the corner keeping an eye on the bridge traffic as Verde gets you over the fence to Agent Naranja. You are led to a corner just out of the view of the bridge traffic before Naranja sends you up the many flights of stairs to Agent Rojo (me). I get the privilege of welcoming you to the party. 

The room is candle-lit and enlivened with the sounds of harmonium and Indian drum. After everyone arrives to the room safely Nathan follows. The last to come up, he closes the manhole behind him. Now we are virtually undetectable. We serve chocolate covered strawberries and a special ginger concoction while people sit on the floor in silence, whispers and conversation. Indian music fills the room with a peaceful presence.

But not every one made it that night. We had five different performances that were supposed to take place up there far above the East River and each one canceled on us the day of. Out of our crowd of 30 all made it to the top except one girl who bailed upon discovering where we were going. The NY Times photographer who came along for the ride was the very last besides Nathan to go up. He waited nervously until the end, not sure if he wanted to commit.

Finally he did. He wrote this about the experience in his article about photographer Todd Seelie which came out shortly after the party.

In the windy darkness of a recent spring morning, 30 people of an arty, mostly Brooklynite persuasion gathered after midnight for an illicit get-together in a maintenance shed, high atop the Williamsburg Bridge. Billed as the “Third-Annual NYC Undercover, You-Might-Be-Arrested, Clandestine Errantry Trespassing Adventure Party,” the event attracted members of a distinct, risk-taking subset of the New York art world — heights-loving writers, courageous painters, a devil-may-care guitarist, a guy lugging bongos and the Williamsburg photographer, Tod Seelie — all of whom had been quietly invited to the late-night affair by its pseudonymous organizers, Agent Verde and Agent Rojo.

After scrambling over a 10-foot-high security fence, the partygoers climbed a steel staircase — the lights of Manhattan glimmering below — as part of a vertiginous, invigorating trip that culminated in a catwalk, a ladder and finally a narrow hatchway, leading up to a low-ceilinged room of riveted metal plates. There, for more than an hour, the group made music and unauthorized public art. Light was provided by votive candles and flashlights. Mr. Seelie, a bald man sporting tattoos and a Fu Manchu mustache, camera at his eye, stood taking pictures in the middle of the room.

“When a trip takes this much effort,” he said, “there’s usually something worthwhile at the end.”

Looking down the cables onto Delancey Street

After about an hour in the tower we reopened the manhole and instructed everyone to filter back down. Some guy from the bike path spotted our crowd descending the stairs and ran to the emergency phone mid-bridge to call the Police on us. Pulses racing, we made it down the ramp and onto Delancey street just as the police zoomed onto the bridge, lights flashing.

 ……And no one got arrested.

Check out Nathan’s new project WanderLust. Together he and his partner Ida C. Benedetto will take you places you never imagined. If you like adventure, sign up for their invites. You don’t want to miss their next one, believe me.