> It was approximately 2.5 miles of marches and then a rally point. From
> discussions I had with leafleteers and bystanders, the streets were full
> of people from curb to curb at most of the route. These were the wider
> streets of New York, not the the thin ones...... (See history of the
> draft riots to understand why.)
>
> I am not sure if the WBAI report was true, but if the head of the march
> did reach Foley Square while the back of the march was still waiting to
> start at 23rd Street and Broadway, the estimate of 300,000 people is not
> unrealistic.
>
> 3) As usual, the cops had people penned in at different times and
> places and essentially regulated the size of the march through
> discouragement into entry into the march. The cops were not as heavy
> handed as at some marches but they still turned people away from entry
> points and gave people the run around! The strategy of the cops in NYC
> is often to limit the size of these marches.
I'm just going on the story about the march stretching 10 blocks. If the march route was longer, then there may have been more people, but not necessarily 100 or even 300,000 people. If the cops were penning people at certain points, that would have helped give the impression that the "march" lasted longer as was really big. I also know from experience that march organizers manipulate the pacing of marches to make it seem that the protest is much bigger. There isn't anything really wrong with that, but there has been a consistent problem with protest organizers inflating crowd sizes.
The old activist saying goes that you take the police estimate and the organizer's estimate and figure the average. That's most likely the more accurate number. And with ANSWER we know that they routinely inflate actual protest sizes by factors of 3 and 4.
At this point I'm tempted to start up a volunteer network of people who will use various methods to count crowd sizes at large protests.
Chuck -------------------------- Bread and Roses Web Design serving small businesses, non-profits, artists and activists http://www.breadandrosesweb.com/