Like the $20 tickets for Rent, you had to get there early if you actually wanted to reach the site of today's protest rally in NYC. By the time I printed out my sign at Kinko's (above, made in Powerpoint, thank you), the rally became a march and the march came to us. We never got closer than 3rd Avenue and 55th street, and spent a crowded hour+ getting back to Bloomingdale's, five blocks away. It was like the Saturday before Christmas shopping-meets-WTO; stores were open everywhere, and full of consuming marchers. The beverage of choice for NYC peacelovers: Diet Coke. I'd have had an easier time finding a roll of duct tape in Arlington.
Our calculation of the crowd size, using Prof. Clark McPhail's technique: 250-300,000, which turns out to be low.
While exhilarating, no one really got my sign, which is fine. It means I < heart > Old Europe. But when an art world friend saw it, he first thought it meant, "I < heart > Olafur Eliasson." [Which I do, don't get me wrong, Olafur...]
