By nightfall, the anarchists’ much hyped “day of action” had degenerated to shouting and fist shaking from behind a series of police barricades at Herald Square, squelched by at least 550 arrests, a new daily record for the protests against the Republican National Convention.

The protester groups, called the “A31 Coalition,” had planned a series of marches to converge on Madison Square Garden as the culmination of a day of civil disobedience all over the city. But many of the touted activities at corporate symbols like Hummer of Manhattan and The Carlyle Group never happened. Some of the feeder marches to the convergence were stopped by police before they crossed a single street.

At 7 p.m., protesters tried to block 33rd Street and Seventh Avenue at the base of Herald Square. Police arrested them and others tried to take their place. As the crowd gathered, police in riot gear backed them onto the sidewalk between 33rd and 34th streets on Seventh Avenue, across from MSNBC’s open-air studio. Police officers continued to arrest protesters who got out of hand. As the evening wore on, the crowd grew until it stretched down 34th Street, and then down Broadway to 32nd Street. Police officers were forced to shut down the Herald Square subway station.

As delegates emerged from 34th Street and arrived in Herald Square, demonstrators screamed at them and demanded “Why are you exploiting New York for September 11th!” and “How much war do you want?” Delegates ignored the remarks.

Today, protesters will line sidewalks from Wall Street to Madison Square Garden with people carrying pink slips to symbolize the nation’s unemployed. The Answer Coalition has received a permit for a rally tomorrow at Eighth Avenue and 31st Street. In interviews with The New York Sun, some protesters have intimated that there will be a major disturbance tomorrow, when President Bush is scheduled to make his speech.

“I’m trying to save my arrest for Thursday, at least,” said a protester who identified himself as Russ Cocker of Brooklyn.

Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly announced in a press release that as of 10 p.m. yesterday that there had been 550 arrests. The number was expected to increase as arrestees were processed. The figure includes a minimum of 285 arrests in the Herald Square area.

Police officers have arrested 1,110 people involved in convention-related protest activity since Thursday, nearly all for disorderly conduct, but also 16 for assaulting a police officer. Four officers have been hurt in demonstrations.

“Most protesters expressed dissent in a peaceful fashion, while a minority engaged in unlawful activity,” Mr. Kelly said at his press conference. He praised police officers for “professionalism in the face of relentless provocation. Many of those arrested are from out of town and are veterans of other demonstrations.”

The arrests include 200 from the War Resister’s League, which had planned to conduct a funeral march, in total silence with marchers dressed in white, from Ground Zero to Union Square. They planned to march solemnly in pairs along the sidewalk.

Mr. Kelly said that the group reneged on an agreement to not obstruct pedestrian traffic, but representatives of the WRL said it was the police who reneged.

The director of the New York Civil Liberties Union, Donna Lieberman, was at the march. She said police waited until they went to Fulton Street, ordered the group to increase the space between marchers, and immediately began surrounding marchers with orange netting to prepare for the arrest.

“It was a stunning example of what not to do,” she said.

A31 touted yesterday’s events for months before the convention began, promising “street theater” and “spontaneous protests” all over the city. But the demonstrations, at least until the evening, were a bust, as police prepared for possible actions at the RAND Corporation, the Carlyle Group, and Hummer of Manhattan and no demonstration materialized. One that did materialize, in front of Fox News headquarters in Midtown, saw hundreds of protesters shouting “Shut up!” mocking Fox commentator Bill O’Reilly’s catchphrase.

Code Pink Women for Peace got up early to set up in front of a breakfast for delegates sponsored by Haliburton at the New York City Hilton on Sixth Avenue. Demonstrators threw fake hundred-dollar bills into the air and chanted while a man wearing a mask of Vice President Cheney’s face rolled in the money. The rest of the 32 demonstrators wore fake pig noses.

At Grand Central Terminal, more than two dozen “Billionaires for Bush” turned the terminal into a makeshift ballroom. Sporting tuxedos, top hats, fake tiaras, and evening gowns, the demonstrators charmed onlookers by waltzing around the main concourse around 4 p.m. as police officers kept watch.

“I paid for eight years and I intend to get my eight years,” said N. Hera Dafortune, who is really Erum Naqvi, a student studying economics at Fordham University.