New York City 2600

What’s it all about?

The New York City 2600 meeting is a monthly gathering of local hackers, phreaks, nerds, geeks, sympathizers, and more unlabelable folks. It takes place on the first Friday of every month (regardless of any holidays or other events it conflicts with, the day never changes.) The meeting is located in the first-floor food court at Citigroup Center, at the corner of 53rd Street and Lexington Avenue in Manhattan, New York City.

The 2600 meetings were started by Emmanuel Goldstein and 2600 Magazine as an open forum for technology enthusiasts to meet, greet, teach, learn, and simply hang out. In keeping with the spirit of 2600’s meeting guidelines, we meet in a public area. It keeps things accessible to everyone.

What happens there?

You can simply come in and claim a table. Or, better yet, seek out a table occupied by some hackers, introduce yourself, and join in the conversation.

Fortunately, most people at the meetings are too smart to bother with the whole “elitist” attitude you may find in some of the less decent hacking or phreaking chats, message boards, and newsgroups. Any really obnoxious “31337″ types don’t tend to last long in this community.

If you prefer, you can feel free to introduce yourself as your nickname, screen name, or other online handle. Nobody will think it odd, or pressure you for your actual name. We understand the value of a good pseudonym, and the innumerable reasons for choosing one. We personally have some 2600 pals we’ve known for a decade, whose birth names we still don’t know. It’s not an issue.

The meeting officially starts at 5:00 PM, but sometimes things will take another hour to really start up. By around 6:00, most of the tables in the central area and scattered tables elsewhere are meeting-goers. People chat about all kinds of subjects from hacking, to phreaking, to legitimate sysadmin-ing, to conspiracies, to how many fish you can name, to what your favorite cartoon is, to absolutely anything else. You can wander around and join any conversation which catches your ear, you can sometimes chat with 2600 Magazine staff who float around, you can play with gadgets people sometimes bring, or you can just eat some overly expensive pizza. If you see any of us around, please stop by and say hi, as we love meeting new meeting goers! We’ll also be happy to answer any questions you may have to the best of our ability.

The meeting officially lasts until Citigroup starts kicking people out at around eight or nine-ish, but it tends to wind down before then.

Aftermath

After the meeting, some people go their separate ways. However, many regulars like to go one of a few restaurants together. Some people (ourselves included) usually end up at a diner called Around the Clock, others end up elsewhere, and often people will decide to try out a new place entirely. Hopping from one place to another in a big unruly group has been known to happen. People will be shouting to gather groups to head out to eat together, so if a group catches your ear, feel free to join, As always, anyone is welcome to come along.

After dinner, you might want to keep your ears open. There have been parties known to spring up here or there. We have occasionally found ourselves on spur-of-the-moment outings to a movie, cybercafe, tourist trap, aimless wandering through the City, or some other misadventure. Use your judgment when it comes to this stuff, as by this time the “official” event has ended.

Does any of this interest you? Come to a meeting! Bring a friend! Bring an enemy! Bring gadgets! Bring trash! Bring nothing! The only thing you really need to bring is yourself, and a positive frame of mind.