My husband, docbrooklyn, and I were at Times Square yesterday for the gathering. We were at the southern end of the rally, between 42nd and 43rd Streets. This is a brief recap of our time there.
The three trains that go to Times Square from our neighborhood in Brooklyn happened, coincidentally, to be shut down for track work, so we improvised a new route and got to 42nd Street at about 5:30. First we headed east toward the sound of people chanting on Sixth Avenue. We saw the marchers coming uptown from Zuccotti and then Washington Square Park, a total of about three miles. They were limited to the sidewalk, and blocked from the street by a barricade. Given what we knew about the cops and their recent behavior toward the protesters, we didn't join them. We don't do close crowds penned in by barricades.
It looked to us that people were being held at the corner of 42nd Street, so we turned around and went west on 41st Street. We got to Times Square with no trouble. We found out later that the marchers were forced to go up farther and turn west on 46th Street, and then many of them couldn't get to Times Square.
As most of you know, we're not allowed to use amplification, so the people use human microphones. Rather than call and response, it's a call and repeat system. The person talking calls, "Mic check!" and the listeners respond, "Mic check!" Then the speaker speaks in brief phrases or sentences, which are then repeated by the crowd so that everyone can hear. I've been to Zuccotti a few times, and have seen it in action, but to see it and hear it in Times Square was amazing. 30,000 people calling and repeating in waves, one group at a time, was quite moving, particularly when the speaker was saying something that everyone believed in.
Then came the first announcement that the police were arresting people at 47th Street. Following that, the group shared the phone number of the National Lawyers Guild's office, just in case. I wrote it on the back of our sign. After a few more speakers came the announcement that the police were blockading 46th Street, and that the counter-terrorism police were there.
At that point, docbrooklyn and I decided it was time to head back to Brooklyn. Neither of us wanted to get arrested (we have three kids at home), and we really didn't want to get hurt. As we've seen over and over again over the past few weeks, the police are acting far more brutally than they have in quite a while.
We left at about 7pm, and were joined at the train station and on the train by another man who was there and who told us about what had been going on on 46th Street. He told us that he'd seen a horse nearly fall over, but he couldn't figure out why. Now we know that the NYPD was using the horses as battering rams.
It was a remarkable event. The positive energy of the protesters was palpable, and there were no police near us. Because we didn't feel threatened, we felt safe. We were free to come and go, and really felt change in the air. Clearly the experience of those just a few blocks uptown was completely different. The cops once again took violent action against peaceful protesters. It's a strange thing to make your children understand that the police are supposed to help you in an emergency when they often are the cause of the emergency.
See you back at Zuccotti Park later this week. Enjoy the photos.
Our sign (to which we added quotation marks, since the irony was lost on some)
The crowd looking north from 42nd Street -- it went up to 48th Street.
Our friends and neighbors' signs
These two went together:
A reminder: