Politics

Wow. We’re not going to be able to afford anything but cops in NYC after this week. There are 3-6 cops per block on 9th Avenue from 14th to 23rd Streets, and at least 10 per block on 7th and 8th Avenues in the same area.

Big (and I mean that in several ways) presence of NYPD “guarding” Billy’s Bakery on 9th Avenue and the Maritime Hotel. Maybe they’re looking for some Upper East Side hotties.

Orange cones everywhere. The “Free Speech Zone” running north on 8th Avenue above 23rd Street is empty, and you have to get permission to even enter the sidewalks in that area. We’re also seeing cops in plain clothes riding scooters around. It’s hard to tell the non-badged thugs from the thugs, since they aren’t showing badges.

We have less freedom of movement at the moment than we did downtown in the days after 9/11. See our photos from then for proof.

From Newsday:

Newsday photographer Moises Saman – who spent eight days in an Iraqi prison in 2003 – was taken into police custody yesterday in Times Square while covering a protest related to the Republican convention.

“I was photographing a guy getting arrested and somebody grabbed me from the back with a lot of force and made me fly backwards,” said the award-wining photographer, who was at 45th Street and Seventh Avenue at about 5 p.m. when the incident occurred.

“I turned around and it was a police officer in a white shirt,” Saman said. “He just said something like, ‘You’re arrested … I told you to move.’ But he [had] never said anything to me.”

Spencer Platt, a staff photographer for Getty Images, who was on the scene, said police had started to arrest some quasi-anarchists on the street corners when officers got rough with Saman and others.

“There were about 10 photographers photographing what I think was an arrest,” said Platt. “A cop just walked up, arbitrarily grabbed Moises by his shoulders and just threw him backwards. … Moises was on the ground, dazed and shocked. We’re all yelling, ‘What are you doing?’ and he picked him up off the street and arrested him. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

Saman, 30, said police handcuffed him and put him in a van with about 10 protesters, took a Polaroid photograph of him, and drove him to the West Side pier, where a temporary processing center has been set up.

“By that time, they already knew about me and they took me aside from the rest of the protesters,” Saman said. “They told me they were going to let me go.”

Police later said several photographers were taken into custody when protesters blocking the sidewalk were arrested. After officials realized the photographers were members of the media, police said, they were released and no charges were pressed.

Saman said it took about two hours before he was released. An officer then escorted him to the West Side Highway, where he hailed a cab and returned to Times Square to continue work.

The Newsday photographer, along with Newsday reporter Matthew McAllester, was held by Saddam Hussein’s security agents at the infamous Abu Ghraib prison in March 2003 as U.S. trooped pressed into Baghdad.

I only took one, as I was generally holding the sign which said on one side:

and on the other

James has a post and a lot more photos.

I’m listening to anoise.org right now. The police have cleared the Times Square area of all pedestrians so that the delegates leaving their Broadway shows won’t have to see any protesters.

—

We got home OK. We were near the end of the march, so we started around 11:30-12 at Christopher and 7th Ave and finished at Union Square around 5:30. Tired.

Gothamist Gazette has a group blog covering the invasion/convention, with the writers including our friend Jon Winkleman.

Here are more photos of our march across the Brooklyn Bridge today.

Here is the post James did, with a link to his gallery of photos.