I showed up a little late for the "HANDS OFF!" demonstration everyone I know has been planning to attend: "Saturday 1-3, Bryant Park"! Many on the same train poured out the same exit at 40th Street and Sixth Avenue, a little surprised the subway station wasn't closed or thick with crowds, and as we surface we all did the same double take. The big beautiful lawn of Bryant Park was as big and beautiful as ever - nobody there! Had the event fizzled? Was it because it had rained a little before that... could protest be so easy to dampen?
In some confusion we found our way eastward where there seemed to be some people with signs, and heard distant cheers. The people with signs were moving so I joined them for a while; it seemed the demonstration was in 40th Street, not the park. But once a packed 40th Street came into view I could see those people were moving too, slowly, toward Fifth Ave. I decided to circle around and catch them on Fifth by cutting across the park, behind the NYPL, to 42nd Street, only to find that the whole block on 42nd Street was solid with people and signs!
I walked along the northern face of the library, and found Fifth Avenue awash with people as far as the eye could see. (I gather the march went on for twenty blocks!) I shot this video from the steps of the library.
There were lots of witty and wise signs (one said TOO MUCH TO FIT ON ONE POSTER), but there were no organized chants. Occasionally, however, a roar would wash up Fifth Avenue and we would join it, a kind of primal scream of joy and the rediscovery of voice and power.
I didn't recognize anyone, though I felt like I knew everyone. Finally someone called "Mark!" - an old colleague, retired a few years ago, whom I hadn't seen in years. Everyone she knew was there too, she said, but she couldn't find them. As we talked it became clear we'd both teared up over the same wave of sound. "This feels so good," I said, "We should do this every Saturday." "Just what I was thinking," said she.