Here are the protest numbers, in the NY Times!

[edhopper]

"The protest organizer, United for Peace and Justice, estimated the crowd at 500,000, rivaling a 1982 antinuclear rally in Central Park, and double the number it had predicted."
The paper of record finally gets it right. Let's see if the other media now tell the truth!
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/30/politics/campaign/30protest.html

[bogey18]

1. Are we playing right into their hands?

I am afraid of how this is going to get spun by the evil ones.

[Shopaholic]

2. My local papers today said that "thousands" protested.

Not tens of thousands, not hundreds of thousands. . . just thousands. Oh well, I live in SC--what was I expecting--I'm more surprised it even was mentioned at all!

[edhopper]

3. How does this play into their hands?

I was at the protest. After a day of hearing numbers like 100,000 or "tens of thousands" from the media, it was refreshing to read a report that reflected reality.

[leesa]

7. What are you talking about?

[SicSemperTyrannis]

9. When do you start spinning?

[Beam Me Up]

17. I have an idea. LETS NOT DO ANYTHING!!!

God knows, ANYTHING WE DO will be "spun" by the spin masters. Lets just let the RNC/PNAC/NAZI creeps just roll right over us. Everyone should KNOW THEIR PLACE AND STAY IN IT!!

:puke:

[HEFFA]

4. My local news channels both reported "tens of thousands"

This would be at least somewhat accurate if they just changed it to "tens of tens of thousands."

The "liberal" media strikes again!!:eyes:

[AmerDem]

5. Funny how the NYPD said 120,000 and

said 200 arrests.I guess they don't want people to think there are large amounts of people opposed to shrub.I hope there will be further protest thru out the week especially on Thursday when shrub speaks.

Don't expect many media outlets to show the 500,000 figure!

[RafterMan]

12. The NYPD doesn't release estimates

And in that article, the 500k number is "confirmed" anonymously by an NYPD source.

[AmerDem]

14. Well, it's been reported by many already that

the NYPD has estimated 120,000 protesters. Very few are carrying the new 500,000 estimate, at least as of now.

[merh]

29. Okay, so 380,000 just happened to be walking by when

the protesters were demonstrating! <sarcasm off>

I guess the Jack Nicholson line "You can't handle the truth!" is one that could easily apply to the Repukes and their little weed.

[G_j]

6. "One police estimate put the crowd at a half-million"

-from a caption in one of the NYT protest 'slide shows'.
(Some nice photos btw)

[Blue_Roses]

19. OMG--unbelievable

what a turnout! Now THAT is inspiring! :bounce:

[Hutzpa]

31. Holy Smokes!!!! That looks more like 500.000 or more to me n/y

:bounce:

[peekaloo]

8. BBC International downplayed the number on last night's broadcast

saying 100,000.

:eyes:

Who are we to believe, the media or our lying eyes?

[ProfessorGAC]

10. It Didn't Look Like A Half-Million To Me

I think the 200,000 number looked to be about the best estimate.

Just using past gatherings on film, and knowing how many people were actually there (think Woodstock, Simon & Garfunkel in Central Park, California Jam, etc.) i would say i've seen larger gatherings of people in one place, but at the same time, the numbers were a lot higher than 30% more than an NFL game. (That would be 100k.)

That's why when i heard the estimate of 200,000, i thought that seemed about right.

Don't get me wrong, either. 200,000 peaceful people with one purpose on one day is incredibly important. I just don't think it was 500k. So, the media is probably not going to report a number that high. If they report one even close to the truth, the point intended by the protestors will be equally strong.
The Professor

[Stephanie]

11. Were you there?

I was, and I put it at one million. IMO.

[ProfessorGAC]

15. Huh?

How could you tell from within the crowd how big the crowd was? I sure couldn't. Once you get to about 20,000 people, you wouldn't be able see the edges of the crowd anyway. So, you'd never know where it ends.

It's way easier to tell how many people are in a huge crowd from overhead shots. You can figure out how dense the crowd is, and then figure out how many blocks they taking up. Then you can pretty well esimate based upon the space each person needs to move around without banging into to everyone else or falling. That's how the police ultimately do their estimates, i'm pretty sure.

Besides, i don't think you read my post very carefully. Whatever the number, it was big, it was impressive, and i was happy to see it. I just don't think it was 500k. Still a lot of dedicated and devoted people. The exact number being bigger isn't necessary for me to be impressed.

I'm glad you were there.
The Professor

[Stephanie]

22. So what are you basing your estimate on?

Have you seen overhead shots?

From within the crowd I was aware of how many blocks were filled at the starting point (7th from 14th to 23rd, including side streets between 9th & 6th, plus feeder marches joining from other neighborhoods, and late starters not lined up at noon - I live in the neighborhood so I was well aware of the logistics here). I was also aware of the density of the crowd (intense! very easy to have friends just swept away never to be seen again. We lost one). As well as the fact that it tooks us three hours to move 16 blocks up to MSG. Also the density of the crowd that passed by non-stop as we sat down for 40 minutes drinking cokes. And the fact that it took over four hours to complete the whole march because sometimes it was so dense you did not move at all.

I am just wondering what you base your low estimate on when the police, who always underestimate protest crowds, say one half million?

[muriel_volestrangler]

27. I think your information may indicate about 250,000

here's how:
The whole route was about 2.2 miles, according to the New York Times. If that took over 4 hours (which the NYT's graphic also indicates was the time for the tail of the march to cover the route) then people were going at about half a mile an hour. I reckon you must have 2 feet from one 'rank' to the next - measuring toe to toe (ie at least a foot clear space between you and the guy in front - otherwise you won't be able to move). Looking at one of the NYT photos, 40 people across the street looks like as much as you'd get. So:
in one hour, half a mile of the march passes = 5280/2 = 2640 feet
2640 feet = 2640/2 = 1320 ranks of protestors
1320 * 40 = 52,800 protestors pass in one hour.
So, with the march going on for about 5 hours (at any one point), you have about 250,000 protestors in total.

If the total figure includes people who only marched a bit of the route, or were more than 5 hours behind the leaders (or who stood and watched?), then you can increase the numbers. If you think you were closer than a foot to the back of the person in front of you, or there were more than 40 people across the street, then you can also get the figure larger. But getting it above half a million looks very unlikely. Remember the organisers said 400,000. They had to do the sums to know the march was going OK.

[Amaya]

13. I was there

200,000, Ha! Try a million.

:)

[ProfessorGAC]

16. Same Question As To Stephanie

How could you tell from within the crowd? I don't get it.
The Professor

[TahitiNut]

18. Well, Woodstock was about 500,000.

An average football game at Candlestick Park is about 50,000. The protest march in San Francisco in October 2002 was about 50,000, too - about the same number that I'd see at a 49ers game.

While I only watched on CSPAN as the marchers filed past Madison Square Garden, it sure seemed to be about 400,000 (+/-20%) to me. I figure a group of 40x40 (1600 people) filed past each minute. If I figure a speed of 2 mph (about 170 feet per minute), that means a little more than 4 feet between people, and about 40 abreast. Then, when I figure there were about 20% more protesters than what I saw file past on CSPAN, I don't think 400-500,000 is at all out of range. About ten times the number that attend an average NFL game and about the same number as Woodstock.

But I wasn't there and I wasn't flying overhead in a helicopter, either. :shrug:

I'd put 200,000 at the lowest reasonable estimate and 700,000 as the highest. I seriously doubt it was a million.


On edit: I'd also guess the ratio of police to protesters was anywhere from 1::50 to 1::100. It seems disengenuous of the police to evade making crowd estimates public, since such estimates form the basis for putting police on duty. If we take a guesstimate of marchers::police of 75::1, are we saying they had fewer than 4,000 police on duty for the protest? I don't think so.

[ProfessorGAC]

20. I Used Woodstock As My Reference

I've got the documentary about the "Making of Woodstock" at home. The overhead helicopter shots are what i used as a reference, and that is pretty universally accepted as a crowd of half of a million.

The overhead shots yesterday (they showed them this morning on the local ABC news from the NY ABC news helicopter) looked impressive, but not anywhere close to the scope of Woodstock.

I admit it was a WHOLE LOT of people. I just think it was a measurably smaller crowd than the picture in the booklet from Woodstock.

I kind of did the same thing you did, with the marchers and marching by per minute. I used far less than 40 across, and because of the coffin carriers (a nice touch, btw), i had them spaced out more than every 4 feet as well. So, doing the same thing you did, i get about half the number. So, i'll stick with 200k. If i'm wrong, that's ok. The more the better. I just think 500,000 is too high.
The Professor

[TahitiNut]

28. One of the things I noticed about the CSPAN coverage ...

... was that it didn't often show the whole width of the street. When I look at the following photograph, I'm fairly confident that 40-across is a reasonable guesstimate. It's pretty clear there're more than 40 across in this photo.



The caption below this photo in the NY Times 'slideshow' says "Thousands of people protesting the war in Iraq and the Bush presidency marched in Manhattan on the eve of the Republican convention. One police estimate put the crowd at a half-million."

http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2004/08/29/nyregion/20040829PROTEST_SLIDESHOW_1.html

[choie]

34. Perhaps something to add to this Woodstock comparison ...

Hi Professor! I think you make a good point -- I agree that 500,000 may not be accurate; however, I doubt it's off by as much as you're estimating.

IMO the difference between looking at Woodstock's crowd and the march crowd is that at Woodstock, the masses there were all pretty much a static bunch -- they were basically staying in the field and environs.

But looking at the protest crowd as filling 40+ blocks (20 going uptown, 20 going back downtown, plus the long block between 7th and Broadway) isn't showing the whole story. Remember, new marchers kept arriving for hours, replacing the others who had finished the loop. Not to mention that there were other marches that fed into the main one. So while 40+ blocks were filled at any one time with roughly 200,000 people, the ongoing stream of new marchers must have been double that, at least.

LOL, I'm not sure if I made any sense up there. And as you say, 200,000 is a huge number anyway. I just wanted to add this info into the calculations and guesstimates. :)

[NewYorkerfromMass]

21. No way could it have been more than 500,000

That is the outside highest possible physical limit of how many could fit in the 2 plus miles of the route.
The route was 2.2 miles long and 100 feet wide (1,161,600 SF).
A very dense crowd of 4 sq. feet per person gives you 290,400 people. Now that's 2 feet sq- about as close as walking space would permit.

To get 500,000 people in that space you would need a density of 2.33 SF per person. That would barely allow enough room to move!

[TahitiNut]

24. That assumes they're all 'en route' at the same time.

They're not. They have staging areas at the beginning and end. People arrive and depart all the time.

I don't estimate 4 sq ft per person .. I estimate 12-16 sq ft (4'x3' to 4'x4') per person, on average.

[G_j]

25. I don't think that 2.2 miles

includes the many blocks of feeder marches waiting patiently to feed into the main march.

my personal completely unscientific guess is half a million.

[Must_B_Free]

36. People were still crossing the start of the march over 3 hours after

it started. So 2.2 miles is an irrelevant calculation.

[Rich Hunt]

23. Dennis Hastert

I saw Dennis Hastert on tv saying that the protesters were 'just a bunch of anarchists'. 500,000 anarchists. Yeah, right. Anarchists with Kerry / Edwards signs and American flags.

[theboss]

26. The NY Times is reporting the organizers' estimate

500,000 seems way too high from what I could see. I think the guess of 200K to 250K seems about right. (It also falls in line with the ongoing trend of organizers' to always inflate their numbers by at least 70 percent).

[skygazer]

30. I'm lousy with estimates

All I can say is that it warmed my heart to see so many people out there - I wish I could have been there and, to everyone who was - THANK YOU!!!!! :party: :bounce: :toast:

[edhopper]

32. My feeling is

based on the other three protest in NYC over the last 2 years. I've attended them all. If the one before the war and the one from Times Square to Union Square this year had the 200,000 - 250,000 that was reported, this was probably twice as large. You have to reduce the numbers of those protests or accept these. And as for how many people can fit into 2 miles of NYC, New Years in Time Square always seem to excede 1 million.

[jackieforthedems]

33. I Think The Protest And Numbers Were Great!

I don't think we have anything to worry about - maybe it'll give the undecided, etc... some food for thought and they'll do a little more investigating into why Bush isn't as well liked as they first thought.

[magnolia]

35. This morning on MSNBC...

...it was reported that organizers estimated 400,000 but they added the police believe it was more than that. They also said that there were 200 arrests. Yesterday I read (I forgot where) that the police said there were 200 arrests but...MOST WERE NOT RELATED TO THE PROTEST. So they are reporting all the arrests in the whole city as protest arrests.