On Sun, 29 Aug 2004, Doug Henwood wrote:
> The NYT quotes an unidentified cop as agreeing with the organizers'
> 500,000 estimate. It was really fucking big.
My very rough sampling method came up with the same number you'd get by the usual method of doubling the official estimate (100,000), halving the organizers' (500,000) and striking an average. I watched the entire march pass by 21st street and then took up the rear. I took 2 hours and 40 minutes to pass, and it took 6 minutes for a person to go one block. If the standard estimate is 7,000 people per packed city block (and they were packed at that stage), that would be 70,000 an hour, or 196,000 total (adding in the advance block between 21st and 22nd that was in front of me). And then depending on how much of a fudge factor you add in for people joining into the march from the sidelines later on after it was underway, I think we end up somewhere between 210,000 and 250,000.
Which doesn't change the adjective at all: it was awesomely big, esp. when you factor in how wiltingly hot it was. Plus the crowds along the route and in the buildings were thick. That's one nice thing about a NY march along a residential route: ready-made grandstands.
Michael