Thousands Turn Out for Radiohead Hoax in Zuccotti Park

Thousands of people turned out to the Occupy Wall Street protest today at 4pm in the hopes of seeing Radiohead perform. Early in the day, media outlets such as Gawker, and even The New York Times were reporting that Radiohead was going to stop by Zuccotti Park at 4pm today. The band is in town until Monday, having played two sold out shows at Roseland Ballroom Wednesday and Thursday. However, by 4:30pm organizers of the protest announced that they had been the victims of a hoax, and that Radiohead was not, in fact, coming. The hoax, however, drew more people to the park than had yet been a part of the protest, said one organizer who has been there every day since the protest began on September 17th. It was clear that many people were there only to see Radiohead -- several people were wearing Radiohead concert T-shirts, and did not participate at all in the chants, marches, or discussions that were occurring while they were waiting to see if Radiohead was going to show up. Organizers are hoping that, despite the lack of Radiohead, this will inspire people to get involved. "These are people who have been saying to themselves 'I've been meaning to go down there and check that out anyway,'" said one protester who wanted to remain anonymous. "Hopefully now that they came down once, they will come down again."