Introducing a new column in which we get to know the strangers who are yelling under our windows, making out on our stoops, and keeping the dream alive every Friday and Saturday night. They’re the Weekend Warriors.

Alexandra Reali

We met this foursome in the middle of Ninth Street and First Avenue on a recent Saturday night. Dana is from Syracuse, N.Y., Andy lives in Brooklyn, and Arezu and Yasmin were visiting from Montreal. They came to the East Village after a night out in Williamsburg, looking for a bite.

Yasmin: We were here earlier today! I’m actually not too familiar with the neighborhood; we’ve only been here during the day. Now it’s very quiet.

Andy: I like Tompkins Square Park, I like St Marks. They have shows there in the summer, the old punk scene.

Dana: West Village is nicer. I like the roads in this neighborhood.

Arezu: I think there’s more to do at night, actually, in Montreal. Places stay open later and there’s more people on the streets. I find there’s peak hours here. And then it kind of dies – like it fluctuates. In Montreal it’s a steady flow, and different types of people. There are places in Montreal that are very diversified. This particular neighborhood I think is one social group.

Andy: Everyone’s in Brooklyn now, and you gotta move.

Arezu: We were just in Brooklyn, actually. The only reason we left Brooklyn is because I’m staying here. But we would have stayed.

Alexandra Reali

Andy: Yeah, like Lower East Side has moved to Brooklyn – Bed-Stuy! That’s why you gotta go to Bed-Stuy. Williamsburg is like, too… you got, like, the shows and everything there. I like punk rock and the reason I live in New York is because of Lower East Side, CBGBs, Lower East Side punk.

Arezu: We met these guys recently, on Avenue B. We were sitting. I find the interesting thing about New York: a bunch of people trying to create some sort of reality. So people would come and talk to us, and then leave and come and go and one group, at one point there was a very large group of people. And that doesn’t happen a lot in Montreal. That’s something that I like when I come out [here]. Meeting people is one thing, but actually meeting them and connecting with them and talking about things that matter? Because they feel the need to talk about things that matter here.

They feel like they have to. It’s a city full of artists and writers trying to be artists and writers and they have to get it out somehow and so they let it out on the street. That’s what I look for.

Yasmin: I like to sit when I go out. And wait for things like this.