September 1, 2004 - 2:08 p.m.
I was all geared up to joke about waiting for the all-out war in the streets that never came, but woke up to hear that 974 people were arrested yesterday. I hope they sue the hell out of the City. That is just ridiculous. Does anyone know anyone who was arrested? I caught myself thinking "well I'd better stay away since it wouldn't do to get arrested and not show up for work!" Boy am I lame!
There are police absolutely everywhere around this area. Mostly they are just ending up giving directions to the hordes of confused tourists who continue to clog the sidewalks. Except last night they decided to close the subway entrance at the SE corner of 34 and 6 for some reason, and to control the giant crowds of people having to go in at the NE corner, they had those famous orange nets. Those are pretty awful and dehumanizing. Going in to the station I saw a greater than average number of people arriving on trains. However I don't think many were A31 protestors. They were massing on the area because it was the first day of "Tax Free Shopping Week" and also customer appreciation day at Macy's. Um, that seems like poor schedule coordination to me, considering that the area around MSG is the city's main shopping area. I wonder how many shoppers were arrested yesterday just for being in the area.
Other highlights included the first-ever sighting of missionaries to the homeless on 6th Ave, seemingly for the benefit of our conservative visitors. Also today I saw a big clump of protestors with placards which on closer examination said "Captain Morgan for President! Party without the politics!" I kinda wanted to tear their heads off. That's one of the worst things I've ever seen. Exploiting what's going on to sell beverages? Playing on how hardly anyone votes in the elections? I was actually really offended. Hopefully they'll get arrested because you are not allowed to protest with wooden sticks, you have to use cardboard. Oh I should have called the police!
