jennyanydots
<font color=blue>'Their behavior's not good and th
- Joined
- Mar 7, 2004
- Messages
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NY times
and then I remembered:
simon & Garfunkel 1981
500,000 could fit for a concert, but 250,000 won't fit for a protest?
Police Offer Convention Demonstrators a Rally Site Far From the Garden
By DIANE CARDWELL
Published: July 15, 2004
he Police Department drew a line in the sand yesterday for the group planning the largest protest during the Republican National Convention next month, telling the protest organizers they can hold a giant rally only along the West Side Highway, four long blocks from the convention site. If the group disagrees with the site, police officials said, its leaders can sue the city.
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"This is our final offer," said Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly, flanked by the city's parks and transportation commissioners, at a news conference at Police Headquarters. "Obviously they have the ability to go to court and resolve it in some fashion that way."
The group, United for Peace and Justice, sought a permit for 250,000 people to rally on the Great Lawn in Central Park for speeches against the war in Iraq and other Bush administration policies on Aug. 29, the day before the convention begins. But the Parks Department rejected that site, saying that the area cannot hold that many people and that a huge rally could damage the lawn. Instead, police officials have suggested that demonstrators march past Madison Square Garden, where the convention will be held, and then rally, stretched along 30-odd blocks, from West and Chambers Streets to possibly as far north as 12th Avenue and 34th Street.
"It is, we believe, a reasonable alternative, and we need closure on this issue now," Mr. Kelly said. "The ball is in their court."
Protest organizers said they were "blindsided" by the news conference and were never informed that the West Side Highway was a take-it-or-leave-it option. They said that the site would make it hard to construct a sound system that participants miles from the stage could hear, and that protesters would be excessively hot and marginalized at the edge of the city.
"We do not think this is the way this rally should be conducted," said Leslie Cagan, national coordinator for United for Peace and Justice, which plans to demonstrate today at City Hall in support of a Central Park site. "We will continue to work for what we believe is the best way to have our demonstration." Calling the protest site on the far West Side the worst alternative to the park, she asked city officials to remain "open to the range of possibilities that we have put on the table and not give us ultimatums."
But the city's decision, and its very public way of communicating it to the organizers, made it clear that the Bloomberg administration is placing a premium on preserving order during the convention in heavily used areas like Central Park and Times Square.
The Police and Parks Departments have approved permits for 14 organizations to stage protests during the convention, including a prayer vigil by the Christian Defense Coalition opposite Madison Square Garden, a reading of the Constitution by People for the American Way at the Central Park band shell and a 12-hour anti-gun-violence display at Union Square Park organized by Silent March.
In addition, the Police Department has reached an agreement with another antiwar group, Not in Our Name, for a rally on Eighth Avenue south of 31st Street on the evening of Sept. 2, when President Bush is scheduled to accept his party's nomination. The group originally applied for a permit for a march and rally leaving from Union Square, but the department rejected that and instead offered the stationary rally. Protest organizers had originally been reluctant to agree to the proposal because of concerns about searches and about the potential use of four-sided metal barricades, like those used in a February 2003 antiwar protest, that keep demonstrators within the length of each block
The use of such pens has been a sharp point of contention between the police and the protesters, and the department is involved in a civil lawsuit that is seeking a court order barring universal bag searches and discouraging the use of four-sided pens. The suit was brought by the New York Civil Liberties Union and three people who say they were treated roughly by the police at the February 2003 protest, organized by United for Peace and Justice.
But Not in Our Name, at least, was willing to agree to the Police Department's proposal because officials have said that they will not search people unless they have a specific reason to do so and that they plan to use three-sided enclosures with entrance and exit points, as they did at a rally in March.
"They'll be able to come and go, and we are going to search only if there is a reason," said Paul J. Browne, the Police Department's deputy commissioner for public information.
For United for Peace and Justice, though, the negotiations have yielded little progress. An umbrella group formed in 2002 as the country moved toward war with Iraq, it has grown from a handful of local and national organizations to more than 800 across the country. Although some of its events have been marred by clashes with the police, many of them have gone smoothly, with few arrests and little or no disorder.
Indeed, city officials insist that the sticking point stems from the protest's size, not its politics. The Police Department approved the group's request to march directly past the Garden before the convention begins, but have rejected alternative rally proposals at Times Square and along Third Avenue from Midtown to the 60's. Mr. Kelly said yesterday that squeezing a quarter of a million people along a proposed route to Times Square from 59th Street was impractical, and Iris Weinshall, the transportation commissioner, said that a rally on Third Avenue would overwhelm residential side streets and clog access to Manhattan from East River crossings.
But organizers appeared to want to keep their options open, neither accepting nor rejecting the site outright, and deflecting for now Commissioner Kelly's challenge to sue.
"We are fully prepared to maintain the negotiations with the city," Ms. Cagan said, adding that they would attend a meeting with police officials set for tomorrow morning, in the hopes of reaching an agreement and obtaining the legal permits. "We are not on that day engaging in civil disobedience."
and then I remembered:
simon & Garfunkel 1981
Enjoy the Central Park reunion with half a million fans as Simon and Garfunkel perform together for the first time in 11 years. Filmed on September 19, 1981, the beautiful performance bespeaks the emotional intensity of the occasion. Songs include career-making hits such as "Mrs. Robinson," "Bridge Over Troubled Water," "Homeward Bound," "Sound of Silence," "America," and many more classics.
500,000 could fit for a concert, but 250,000 won't fit for a protest?
