Inside the Protest Factory
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.
Down an anonymous row of aluminum-sided houses on a semi-desolate side street in Bushwick, dozens of protesters, activists, and anarchists from around the world have been assembling in seclusion on the first floor of a former Brooklyn drape factory.
“No Media,” reads one sign tacked above the door. “No Law Enforcement,” reads another.
Inside, amid gallons of primary-colored paint (all donated) and cardboard boxes and tubes (all rescued from the trash), myriad activist groups have been sketching out a week’s worth of battle plans for increasingly defiant protests – and conjuring up strategies to sidestep police.
They call the address at 678 Hart St. simply “Art Space,” and yesterday afternoon planners finalized preparations for “A-31,” codename for a series of Republican National Convention protests planned for today that organizers claim will be the most confrontational with police so far.
The protests, expected to include forms of “guerrilla theater,” are planned to begin at 8 a.m. at a breakfast for the Texas delegation in the Hilton New York. At 9:15 a.m., protesters also plan to crash “The Financial Roundtable” breakfast at Tavern on the Green sponsored by Bank of America. At 4 p.m., according to the group’s Web site, demonstrators plan to converge on a number of potential targets around the city:
* Hotels housing Republican delegates, such as the Marriott Marquis and Hilton Times Square.
* Military contracting companies and corporations closely related to the Bush family, such as offices for the Carlyle Group and ChevronTexaco.
* Convention sponsors, such as American Express, General Motors, and the New York Stock Exchange.
* Symbols of affluent consumer culture, such as the automobile dealership Hummer of Manhattan.
“By creating monstrosities that get 11-13 miles per gallon, [Hummer] is ensuring more Middle East wars for oil and more global warming,” the group’s Web site, a31.org, complains.
At 6 p.m., demonstrators plan to gather at Madison Square Park and ultimately converge on Madison Square Garden by 7 p.m., where first lady Laura Bush and Governor Schwarzenegger are the scheduled keynote speakers.
While Sunday’s protest rally, estimated to include between 125,000 to 500,000 people, was said to be the largest ever to protest a national political convention, organizers inside Art Space said today’s “direct actions” will be more mobile, more disobedient, and ultimately lead to more arrests.
“Many, many more arrests,” said Lyra Hill, cutting up a sheath of glittery gold cloth in the pattern of medieval style flags to drape from bullhorns. Ms. Hill,17,is affiliated with Pagan Cluster, a group that dedicates itself to a vague sounding “Earth Based Magickal Activism.” When Ms. Hill made her travel plans to fly to New York from her home in Oakland, Calif., she said, she made sure the return dates on her airline tickets were flexible. Getting arrested was always part of the plan.
“Everybody I know who is non-arrestable will be going to jail [today],” she said. (“Non-arrestable” is the term used by protesters for those with families, children, or medical problems that could face complications from spending a night in jail.)
Sasha Wright, a 24-year-old activist also from the Bay Area who is allied with the group Art and Revolution, said she plans to join Ms. Hill and the Pagan Clusters for an action in Herald Square tomorrow. Without a doubt she plans to be arrested with her friends, she said, describing the action as a “sit-in,” similar to the civil disobedience protests of the 1960s.
“I’ll be sitting, and I won’t be leaving,” she said, then sprawled herself out on a thrift-store couch to take a nap.
Ms. Wright and Ms. Hill were among a handful of recently sun-tanned demonstrators – and banner, puppet, costume, and sign makers hanging around Art Space yesterday afternoon – looking to recycle, refigure, and recolor Sunday’s messages into fresher, more tactile devices. The time for serious clashes with police had come, one man said, and they were willing to try on handcuffs.
Outside, on the stoop, one young woman with streaks of aqua blue running down her hair stubbed out a cigarette and was brief with her words.
“I’m just trying to get psyched up to go to jail,” she said.