Things Hipsters Do: Sleep In Trees In Central Park

Tree enthusiast Cory Foht's mugshot

We're so inundated with anti-hipster sites out there, documenting their colorful headband-enhanced outfits, their chest tattoos, or how much they hate Jager bombs, that we sometimes lose track of all the things they like. Such as sleeping in nylon hammocks 25 feet up in a tree in Central Park at night. CBS, you have your latest show: Shit My Hipster Does.

Hipster connoisseurs the NY Times profiles Cory and Dana Foht, 25-year-old twins from Florida who have slept in a tall American elm tree in the park some 20 nights over the last two months, creating makeshift beds out of sleeping bags amongst the leaves and branches. "It’s kind of like its own ecosystem up here. You’re definitely aware that you are sleeping in something and attached to something that’s alive,” Cory told the Times. With script gold like that, and the occasional felony drug arrest on record, the network won't even have to hire writers!

It's illegal to be in the park between 1 a.m. and 6 a.m., and police frequently comb the park at night to kick out sleeping homeless people. But there is no rule explicitly forbidding climbing any of its 24,000 trees, though there are rules against damaging trees. “Twenty-five years ago, there was a guy who built treehouses in the park. He promised never to do it again,” Parks Dept. spokeswoman Vickie Karp said. The Foht's dream is simple though: "You’re getting into your own little world and rising above the stress of the street life.” After all, life is so stressful when you're an amateur documentarian volunteering at a bicycle-repair workshop in Brooklyn.

Contact the author of this article or email tips@gothamist.com with further questions, comments or tips.

By Ben Yakas in News on November 13, 2010 11:00 AM

Comments [rss]

coryfoht

Here we are in our most recent trees: http://www.flickr.com/photos/9...

BotanistPrime

It sure is great that now anyone who does anything just slightly out of the ordinary is to be labeled a hipster and automatically subject to derision. If only everyone could live their cookie cutter corporate lives, we'd have such a better world.

All your favorite artists and musicians were "hipsters" (or their generational equivalent).

GET OVER YOURSELVES.

CYCLEROCK

Wow! I met the twins this summer on a few Times Up bike rides. Nice dudes, friendly, and non threatening. Apparantly, they biked up to NYC with a backpack each. I knew they had no place to stay, but thought they were rooming w/ friends.

LB

Lol, So the guy likes sleeping in trees. As long as him doing so doesn't damage the tree , So What !

just saying

Actually, Corey Foht doesn't have a "felony drug arrest on record" as Gothamist claims.

From the Gothamist link: "Cory Foht was arrested on four felony counts: possession of less than 20 grams of marijuana; possession and use of narcotic paraphernalia; destroying, fabricating or tampering with evidence, and resisting arrest without violence." HOWEVER, the link goes on to add that earlier this year *all* the charges were dropped so Foht was never actually convicted of anything.

just saying

My bad. I just found out that an arrest still remains on record even if the charges are completely dropped. Apparently, you have to file something called a Petition for Factual Innocence (PFI) in order to have the arrest record sealed and destroyed.

dadoc

Hate to be a stickler, but I have this thing about apostrophes. They are Cory and Dana Foht, AKA the Fohts, therefore their dream is "The Fohts' dream...). Now I'll go away :)

calcetines

Why all the hate? If the guy likes sleeping in trees, he likes sleeping in trees. Too each his own.

Cannibal

Let him do that out in the country then, where there are plenty of trees for him to sleep in.

We have very few nice trees here in the city and the last thing I want to see when I look up are crusty hippies in sleeping bags.

Spirit of 76

Leave the poor guy alone. He just read The Prince of Central Park a few too many times.

winrx

Yakas you is corny and wack YO!

hotstepper

along with hunting the occasional mastodon, sleeping in a tree is a natural extension of the paleo-diet lifestyle.

bonu$baby

amaeteur documentarian volunteering at a bicycle-repair workshop in Brooklyn

Really? Isn't just a fancy homeless person? I'll be the first to chip in a buck for their bus fare back to Pensacola.

Radtard

There is a difference between hippie and hipster, but I just lump them all in on category too: White people.

ribaldry

And we lump you into a category: welfare recipient.

OSN!

filthy trustafarian hippie

Pelican Swoop

How the fuck is that a hipster? It's a trustafarian. You don't know shit.

Hipsters are trying to be/are "hip", trendy, poseurs.

Burn, Yakas.