Friends in San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York, and other cities around the U.S. are sharing tweets, photos, and texts with me today about Occupy Wall Street and spinoff demonstrations. I was on IM with Boing Boing pal Joe Sabia in New York City, who co-curates Boing Boing's in-flight video channel on Virgin America airlines, and he abruptly signed off: "GTG. JOINING THE PROTEST."
Moments later he texts me from his phone, out in the streets: "A protest just came by, and I spontaneously joined. Kind of amazing. About a thousand NYU and New School students coming in from Washington Square Park to Wall Street." And a few minutes after that, "This is definitely more than a thousand."
The New York Observer reports on numbers at nearby Foley Square:
Union members representing the AFL-CIO (AFSCME), TWU Local 100, and SEIU 1199, among others, were scheduled to join the protesters, and it’s an older crowd than previous marches. Occupy Wall Street organizers are estimating the crowd to be 10,000 people.
Filmmaker Michael Moore tweets: "#OccupyWallStreet has shut down Broadway. Wow. NYPD prohibiting traffic."
Meanwhile, I see friends Doc Pop and Quinn Norton live-tweeting protests in San Francisco. "Today's #occupywallstreet protest in SF is surprisingly big," Doc Pop writes, with the photo above, "A solid group about 3 blocks long."
Quinn tweets, "Marching through the tenderloin. 99% indeed."
In Los Angeles, where I am based, some remarkable news breaking this afternoon: the City Council has voted to officially support Occupy LA, and is asking the mayor to issue an executive order supporting the movement and its goal of financial reform, and reducing the gap between rich and poor in America.
Update: In Seattle, police are forcibly removing the tents at an "Occupy" demonstration/encampment. @occuppyseattle's feed has details. There are reports that large numbers of arrests are being made there.
Below, Gawker's Adrian Chen grabbed this photo at the NYC demos today. "To be honest, I don't get it," he says. "But I like it."
Boing Boing readers, what's happening where you are?
