NYPD was more than ready for the expected scores of protesters threatening to invade New York during last week’s World Economic Forum. On Thursday, as a soft rain fell I walked across the Brooklyn Bridge to see how the city was being patrolled. I figured this was a good starting point: the bridge has been a marching ground for many a New York demonstration.
On the walkway fresh-faced probies straight out of the police academy stood at attention as a few joggers and walkers hurried by. Given that these rookies are new to the trade, the NYPD made a wise decision to keep them and their 9 mm’s far from any wisecracking college kid who might bait them about being The Man. A pair of flat-footed sergeants stopped and signed each cop’s patrol book. Near the Manhattan entrance I stopped to talk with a veteran cop, who agreed if his name wasn’t used. He was leaning against a railing smoking a cigarette and didn’t really care whether he looked professional or not. I asked him what he thought about the protests to take place by the Waldorf-Astoria.
He gave me a small smile. "These protesters are supposed to be pro-working-man, right? You think they might protest for us cops?" He looked down, not wanting an answer. "So I’m back in this bag [uniform] because of this. And my pay sucks. You see the last raise we got? Crime comes down to record levels. Giuliani is a hero. How about us? Where’s our raise? Now you got this new mayor, a little man from Boston running around talking about cutting 20 percent of city workers. Making jokes about people losing their jobs. Ha ha, you’re laid off. A real rich man’s sense of humor that little prick has."
The cop looked around and threw down his cigarette in disgust. "Look, people in Central America and other poor countries have my sympathy, but I can barely make my mortgage payments and I ain’t saving jackshit for my kid’s college education. So until they do something about that I don’t care about them or their protests."
I walked through Lower Manhattan and it was just another busy Thursday. I worked my way north. By 42nd St. near Grand Central I still hadn’t seen one protester. On Vanderbilt Ave. I met Mike Connor, 45, a carpenter for Local 608, as he walked up toward the Waldorf-Astoria. Connor wasn’t going to protest, he was just plain curious about all the hoopla. "It’s quiet out here. This is like the protest that never was. But it may be the one that works, because it does everything a protest should. It brings attention to the cause by controlling the media, and the threat of it spends city revenue. Just look at all the cops out here."
Connor was right. The closer we got to the Waldorf-Astoria the more cops we saw. On every block seven to 10 cops were milling about protecting God knows what. The whoop-whoop of emergency vehicles filled the air. As we walked up Park Ave. I asked Connor about the resentment some people have against the protesters for being spoiled college kids. "That really isn’t fair. You have to look at history. Protesters have always been college-educated, because they know what’s going on. They’re informed."
At Park and 48th we could go no farther. The cops had the block in front of the hotel secured. I stood and watched as deliverymen and workers flashed IDs and were allowed to pass. If you really wanted to and had a decent line the cops would have let you pass. You couldn’t say NYPD was lax in security, but realistic. This whole protest thing looked a mite inflated, and the cops weren’t going around with their chests out. On the curb about 100 Falun Gong practitioners were behind police barricades doing their tai-chi-like meditations, while over a p.a. tinny music played and a Chinese voice directed them in their graceful movements. Ten cops stood in rain slickers watching the action. A Chinese man was off to the side handing out pamphlets. I asked a sergeant if there was any action going on. "Please." He dismissed it with a wave of his hand.
On the corner a stout, middle-aged man wearing a blue windbreaker and a Yankees baseball cap stood drinking a cup of coffee. "So what do you think?" he asked me. He had the look of an undercover cop, but he introduced himself as Kevin Whitely from Bayonne, and told me he worked as an Amtrak conductor. I asked him why he was out here in the cold January rain. "Well, I guess I wanted to come out here and make some noise, maybe yell a little. But it’s kind of a no-show."
I asked if he belonged to any of the protesting organizations. "No, I’m just a regular Joe Blow. But the problem with the 2000-plus folks that came here for the meetings at the Waldorf is that they’re the same people who came up with the NAFTA agreement. We need to stand up to them and show them that there’s more to life than just turning a profit. The quality of people’s life is important too." I told him he broke the stereotype of the typical World Economic Forum protester. He gave me a hearty laugh and said, "Yeah, I guess I do. I went to go get coffee before and inside a Starbucks I saw four kids who I assumed were protesters. That’s where they were getting their coffee. Me, I went to the Koreans, because Starbucks is the last place anyone protesting this forum should be going for coffee."
I returned to Park Ave. later Thursday night. Again all I saw was cops. At 8 p.m. a group of them from the 108 Precinct in Queens were getting their books signed by a commander, while new cops came to take over their shift. One young cop from the police academy stood against a building. A beefy police sergeant named O’Toole spied him and barked, "What are you? An extra body?" I walked away thinking that that was what the protesters needed–extra bodies.
On the weekend more protesters showed up, but there still had to be at least four cops for every one of them. The protesters marched and the cops herded them where they wanted them to go. Their numbers had grown, but the effect was the same. The whole thing was flat.
Still, the cops had one major beef. It was a complaint I heard over and over all weekend. "You know what really sucks about this? We’re all going to miss the Super Bowl because of this thing."
