Numbers (Re: Seize the Day

Nathan Newman nathanne at nathannewman.org
Sun Feb 16 06:04:19 PST 2003


----- Original Message ----- From: "Michael Pollak" <mpollak at panix.com>
>As I understand it, the rule of thumb for official figures is 7,000 per
>packed city block. The rally on First Avenue for over 60 blocks, and 60
>would give you 420,000. The 500,00 was then based on that and the packed
>block side streets up near the top.

I don't really care about the numbers particularly-- it was an awesome demonstration where four avenues of the city were blocked by marchers and solidarity was amazing.

But the reality is good enough without mythmaking. I was doing police observing block by block as First Avenue filled. It got up to 72nd Avenue with pens filled. The police ran out of metal pens and began opening them up to squeeze more people in streets closer to the rally site. So you probably had more than 7000 per block squeezed in. I'd assume about double the crowd that was on First Avenue were on the side streets, so that adds up probably to forty to fifty blocks of people grand total -- an amazing number given the width of NYC Avenues. I'd bet on 300-500,000 folks, which is plenty good enough for me.

-- Nathan Newman



More information about the lbo-talk mailing list