ScaryNY: ScaryNY photos from Thursday night rally

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September 3, 2004

ScaryNY photos from Thursday night rally

I attended the Answer Coalition's rally on Thursday night.

From my point of view (the corner of 29th Street and 8th Ave), the biggest tension of the evening came from the NYPD's initial refusal to allow protesters to join the rest of the group across the street, between 29th and 30th Streets. The crowd on that block was dwindling, and our block was packed, but the police had placed metal barricades around each block to prevent movement between them, and they were reluctant to let us pass. This created a rather ridiculous situation of a majority of the crowd being separated from the speakers by a wide open space. Chants of "Let us through! Let us through!" were frequent.

After more than an hour of waiting, we began to hear from organizers that they had negotiated with the police to let us cross. Then we waited some more. And some more. And then the police began to put on their riot gear and form a solid line (probably 40 officers) all the way across 8th Avenue. We weren't getting any information, so we didn't know if they were preparing to move us across the street or if they were just taking a more defensive stance, as a response to our increasing frustration. It was little scary, but you could tell that some of the officers were perhaps even more nervous than we were.

By the time we crossed -- accompanied by loud cheers -- it was about 9.30. The rally continued with fervor and then ended at 10, because the permit for the sound system had expired. A radio reporter I spoke to said the crowd extended for three blocks, and he estimated the size at more than 2,000 people.

These photos document the various stages of the event. Around picture 13 is when they began suiting up and taking the defensive stance. We began crossing over at picture 28. The last few pictures show the crowd leaving (peacefully) and the NYPD helicopter keeping an eye on things.

Here are the photos I took. Some are blurry because it was dark and I left the shutter open longer.