The ralliers, pictured on the corner of Union Square South and University Place, walk toward Union Square Park and then block traffic by walking in the street. Two of them hold up a banner that says, “We’ll get what we can take.”
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Two members of Take Back NYU, an on-campus activist group, were arrested last night during a rally that began near Washington Square Park, continued to Union Square and snaked south again, ending at NYPD's 6th Precinct in the West Village.
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After leaving Union Square Park, the group walks down Fifth Avenue toward the Parsons building, where they entered, walked through and chanted, and exited.
The ralliers run toward the police as they catch Phillips and Lewis on the corner of Washington Square North and MacDougal Street. The ralliers shouted and protested what they said was police violence and brutality toward Phillips and Lewis.
Police hold down Phillips outside the Washington Square Hotel before arresting him.
Police arrested CAS junior Maria Lewis and CAS senior Drew Phillips at MacDougal Street and Washington Square North shortly before 9 p.m., where they were transported to the precinct; they were released just before 11 p.m. on charges of disorderly conduct.
The night began at 8 p.m. with about 30 students, mostly from NYU and The New School, who met in Washington Square Park for what they said would be a "dance party" to express their solidarity for the occupations currently taking place on some of the campuses of the University of California system.
Since the beginning of fall, UC students have been protesting a 32 percent student-fee increase and ongoing attacks of campus unions; just yesterday, several dozen students at UCLA occupied Campbell Hall, a classroom building, according to UCLA's student newspaper, The Daily Bruin.
But the focus of TBNYU's rally wasn't exclusively about the UC occupations; the ralliers spoke out against capitalism, consumerism and, later, the city.
"We are here tonight to abolish the commodity form," said a second-year New School graduate student who identified himself as Auguste Blanqui, a 19th-century French political activist.
He added: "Our comrades in California are objects of capitalism in its decadent form."
The other ralliers, including TBNYU members, declined to comment.
The students left the park shortly after 8 p.m. and walked up along Fifth Avenue, blasting Jay-Z and Alicia Keys' "Empire State of Mind" from a boombox. They stopped between 12th and 13th streets, where they tried to put up a banner on scaffolding but were stopped by an officer. They continued to Union Square, where they danced and put up a banner on the Independence Flagstaff in the center of the park.
The ralliers later walked to the intersection of 14th Street and Fifth Avenue, where they blocked traffic with their bodies and trash cans, which they had removed from sidewalks. As they walked, they chanted, "Workers and students, shut the city down!"
Shortly after 8:30 p.m., the crowd entered the Parsons building at 65 Fifth Ave. They walked through while chanting "Occupy everything!" and exited quickly.
Then they walked down Fifth Avenue, turned onto Eighth Street and arrived at MacDougal Street, where police chased after them and arrested Lewis and Phillips. The ralliers continued to the 6th Precinct, chanting, "Fuck the police from New York to Greece!"
At the precinct, the group stood outside and waited until Lewis and Phillips were released at exactly 10:59 p.m.
The rally came exactly nine months following TBNYU's 40-hour occupation of the Kimmel Center last February, where members of the group barricaded themselves in the third-floor MarketPlace with a list of at least a dozen demands, including tuition stabilization, full disclosure of NYU's budget and endowment, and a fair labor contract for all university employees.
