Why is the march taking so long? Must be a lot of people.

[MikeG]

[StClone]

1. "I think it's the same"

People walking around a block...wait they change cotumes and signs too, whose paying all these actors."

Hey Freeper's it's real, get used to it the backlash may be starting to BushWORLD.

[gristy]

3. LOL

That's right. C-SPAN keeps showing the same 10,000 people walking past Madison Square Garden. Rummy says so, so it must be true.

[whistle]

2. Hey what is they are emerging out of the Holland Tunnel....

...in lower West Manhatten. This march could go on well into the night!

[unfrigginreal]

4. First Reuters estimate I've seen...200,000

Anti-Bush protesters march in New York

Beating drums and shouting "no more Bush," as many as 200,000 demonstrators marched on Sunday past a heavily fortified Madison Square Garden ahead of Monday's start of the convention to nominate Bush for a second four-year term in the White House.

snip

The demonstrators stretched for more than a mile and were watched closely by police in riot gear and on horseback. Police reported more than 50 arrests in the first few hours of the march. More than 350 protesters have been arrested in New York since Thursday.

The protesters carried signs reading "Osama Loves Bush," and "Bush Lies Who Dies?" and "Hate is not a Family Value."

http://www.reuters.co.uk/newsPackageArticle.jhtml?type=worldNews&storyID=573547§ion=news

[Francine Frensky]

5. Yeah, how long does it take 10,000 people to walk a few blocks?

Now if there were 1,000,000 people, THAT might take 5 hours or so....

[jmknapp]

6. Crowd estimate

They have been walking past MSG since noon which is about 4.5 hours right now, and the march just wrapped up. They appear to be walking about 2 mph, so that's a column about 9 miles long. I was guessing about 30 people across, in rows about 5 feet apart. That would be 30*(5280/5) or about 30,000 people per mile. Nine miles of that is 270,000 people.

[senseandsensibility]

7. Thanks for the estimate!

Thanks to the protestors!

[Simeon Salus]

8. I was thinking the same thing as my head was frying

I started at 17th St noon.

By 1:15 we were at 18th St.

At about 1:45 I was finally at the step-off point, west 23rd. There were several very large groups--huge flag, W circle, musical groups, the soon-to-be flaming green dragon--moving like slow oversize trucks blocking most of the lanes, but everyone looked like they were having a great time. Some folks (including myself) scooted around blockage on the sidewalk. If I hadn't I'd have been caught behind the dragon fire fiasco. The poor coffin folks must have been standing in the sun motionless for three hours. The coffins should have close to the front of this march.

Got to the Garden by 2:20 or so, and after the eastward turn on 34th crowd congestion broke up quickly. Mercifully the walk on 34th was largely shaded (the first shade since 17th St.).

So my march ended around 3pm. Two miles in three hours, most of it in the last 30 minutes.

Lots of standing in the sun. I thank the organizers, the participants, and the uniformed folks who kept the peace and put out the damned dragon. Could have been better marshalled though. The park would have been much nicer. Shame on the Mayor.