HOOOOOONK: it's the aural bane of every New Yorker's existence, whether you're driving, cycling, walking or just sitting in your office or home trying to enjoy a honk-free moment. We're all accustomed to noise in New York City, but there is nothing more jarring or exasperating than when a driver obnoxiously, unnecessarily unloads a storm of honks into the air. I'm sure everyone has fantasized about confronting those rogue honkers, but this week, one man actually did just that... through joyous, cathartic dancing.
"I'm glad somebody caught that on camera, it's a beautiful thing," Nate Dupree told Gothamist. "When I was driving away, I had the whole block cheering for me, and I was just hoping someone captured it on video."
Dupree, 29, grew up on Chauncey Street in Bed-Stuy, and is no stranger to being bombarded by honking pollution; but he moved up to Connecticut earlier this year, and was visiting the city when this all went down on Thursday.
Dupree said he was waiting at the light on Dean Street at Carlton Avenue, near Barclays Center, around 1:30 p.m. Thursday when the truck—which was two vehicles behind him—started frantically honking: "Soon as the light turned green, the very second, I kid you not, the man started beeping his horn. And he had a loud horn, three or four blocks could hear it."
Dupree moved forward enough so that the car directly behind him could get past him, then stopped so the truck couldn't pass. "He kept honking, for at least three minutes before I got out of the car, all for one millisecond of me missing the light," he recalled.
The honking was obnoxious enough to get the attention of Brian Cheung, who lives right above the intersection.
"I heard this blaring horn and it was a different—you know when it's a regular car horn, but this was a tractor trailer horn," he said. "They come through every now and then, but what was especially unusual is that they were holding the horn down. After a bit, I knew this wasn't normal, so I did what every New Yorker does and tried to figure out what was going on. I figured something might be going down, so I started recording."
Because of that, Cheung captured the ecstatic climax of the standoff on video.
"I got out and I started dancing out of anger, out of straight, pure anger," Dupree said, adding that he was imitating the truck driver's horn by saying "beeeeeep" while unleashing his impressive dance moves. "I'm so glad I got out of the car," he said. "It was a dancing moment. I wish he had gotten out and started dancing too. He stuck two thumbs up, then he didn't look at me, he tried to ignore me."
Like many New Yorkers, it's something Dupree had fantasized about doing before, but never actually dared try. "I've never done anything like this before," he said. "It was all this built-up anger being released. I've been out of New York for a couple months, and every time you come back, it's like damn."
Dupree said the video perfectly captured his joie de vivre: "In town for one day, I go viral like that. I'm just goofy as hell, dancing all the time. Everybody who knows me knows this is me. And the driver knew he was wrong, that's why he didn't want to come out the car."
Cheung, who later connected with Dupree over social media after posting the video, said he didn't expect the video to take off as it did, but he thought most New Yorkers could relate—he's certainly been both Dupree and the truck driver in that situation before.
"To have that type of reaction unfold is unusual but fun, which is why it caught the attention of so many people," he said "There may be a subconscious desire to do that if you have the dance moves to pull it off, I certainly couldn't to Nate's degree. But especially right now, in this weird time with the pandemic, anything that makes you laugh can bring a lot of fun and happiness to people."
It's been less than a decade since the city gave up and removed the Department Of Transportation's "Don't Honk" signs, and stopped enforcing its $350 penalty for unnecessary honking. A few years ago, Gothamist sent video provocateur Jeff Seal to one of Manhattan's loudest cauldrons of rage to confront them on their honking addiction.
There are of course situations which warrant using the horn, particularly medical emergencies, but otherwise, Dupree thinks that his dancing de-escalation strategy could be an effective non-violent way to convince New Yorkers to lay off the horn more than not.
"I don't wanna get nobody hurt—if they got a medical situation, then you get out the way— but if someone's honking at you, you can just get out and start dancing," he said.
