NEW YORK — In an extraordinary day of protest evoking the anti-war fervor of the 1960s, at least 100,000 people massed in Midtown Manhattan yesterday, demanding a peaceful end to the U.S. showdown with Iraq.
Shouting, chanting and hoisting signs vilifying the Bush administration's stance on disarming Iraq, throngs overwhelmed police efforts to contain the protest along First Avenue near the United Nations.
Shoulder-to-shoulder in numbing cold, the group stretched more than 20 blocks north and three blocks west from the principal rally site, paralyzing a large chunk of Midtown and sparking a handful of tense incidents with police. Dozens of people were arrested for blocking traffic or attempting to breach police barricades.
New York City Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly estimated the crowd's size at 100,000, while organizers placed the figure at between 375,000 and 500,000.
The demonstration, the largest in New York since 700,000 people gathered in 1982 to protest the proliferation of nuclear weapons, was one of hundreds of coordinated anti-war protests across the nation and the world.
More than 150 rallies took place yesterday in the United States alone, from Red Bank in New Jersey to Yakima, Wash., with the largest crowds in such cities as Philadelphia, Chicago and Miami.
Collectively, the protesters reached into the millions, with massive demonstrations staged in some 450 cities overseas. Up to 1 million people swarmed the streets of London, castigating Prime Minister Tony Blair for his steadfast support of President Bush's call to arms against Iraq. The protest was termed the largest political gathering in Britain's history.
In Rome, a crowd estimated at more than 1 million marched for peace, while nearly 2 million attended rallies across Spain. At least half a million gathered in Berlin, marking the biggest protest there since World War II. Demonstrations in France, like Germany a chief opponent of U.S. plans to disarm Saddam Hussein's regime by force, drew an estimated 300,000 people.
In Manhattan, aging men and women who first protested during the Vietnam War mingled with lip-pierced teenagers attending a political event for the first time. There were grandmothers and parents with young children, office workers and environmental activists, anarchists and communists.
All were unanimous in their message.
"It is so obvious that a war in Iraq is the wrong thing to do," said Bill Holt, 48, who traveled from Orwell, Vt., for yesterday's protest, his 16th in 16 weeks. Holt, bundled in wool clothing under a smock covered with anti-war slogans, had left home with his wife at 3 a.m. to make it in time for the scheduled noontime start.
"I thought this was more important than any other rally in my life," he said.
Holt stood among thousands near the protest's main staging area, on First Avenue between 51st and 52nd streets, where singers, poets, actors and activists gave speeches calling for a diplomatic solution to the crisis, which has pitted the United States and Britain against its traditional allies.
"Just because you have the biggest gun does not mean you must use it," said Martin Luther King III, son of the slain civil rights leader, speaking in front of an enormous banner that read, "The World Says No To War."
Rally organizers had hoped to march past the United Nations, where the international drama has played out for weeks, but the city — and ultimately an appellate judge — denied them a permit.
The alternative — a plan to keep the crowds hemmed in along First Avenue north of 51st Street — quickly went awry yesterday as people streamed into the city, some on "peace trains" from New Jersey and Connecticut.
The overflow clogged Second, Third and Lexington avenues from the 40s into the 70s.
Vehicles were helpless against the swelling crowd, coming to standstills across the area as protesters blocked traffic, some intentionally and some inadvertently. The 59th Street Bridge, an important feeder to the East Side from Queens, was shut down for more than an hour.
Thousands of police officers on foot and on horseback tried to keep order, clearing paths for city buses and motorists, in some cases arresting people who refused to budge as they chanted: "Whose streets? Our streets."
In one tense encounter, on Third Avenue at 53rd Street, officers in riot gear arrested more than two dozen people who had been blocking traffic. During the incident, a bystander tossed firecrackers, spooking police horses. Demonstrators shouted at officers, "Shame on you."
By late afternoon, police had arrested 50 people. Eight officers, one of whom was kicked in the head, suffered minor injuries. In addition, a police horse was injured when a protester punched the animal in the head and dragged it to the ground by the reins.
Police clearly had been expecting fewer people. By midafternoon, the NYPD ratcheted up its mobilization category to "level four," its highest, calling in officers from across the city.
The reinforcements joined a police contingent that included sharpshooters on rooftops, bomb-sniffing dogs and officers equipped with hand-held radiation-detection equipment. So concerned with security were the police that they confiscated many of the wooden poles affixed to signs — in essence, disarming the pacifists.
Elizabeth Vargas, arriving with a church group at Grand Central Terminal from Westchester County, was forced to turn over a 3-foot-long dowel she was using to hold aloft her "Give peace a chance" sign.
"What do you think I'm going to do with this, hit somebody over the head?" she asked aloud as the officer added her pole to a rapidly growing stack.
The occasional disagreement notwithstanding, much of the protest had a decided'60s feel, with many in the crowd comparing it to the marches so common during the Vietnam War.
At the First Avenue staging area, singer Richie Havens opened the event with the song "Freedom," reprising his role from the Woodstock Festival 34 years ago. Others who spoke included Susan Sarandon, Harry Belafonte and Pete Seeger.
Former heavyweight boxing champion Larry Holmes received an appreciative roar with the remark: "We took the whole East Side of Manhattan. I don't know what a million people looks like, but it looks like you."
Archbishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa, a veteran of the peace movement, officiated over an interfaith prayer service across from the United Nations before the demonstration, emerging from Holy Family Church with the rallying cry, "Peace! Peace! Peace!"
"Let America listen to the rest of the world, and the rest of the world is saying, 'Give the inspectors time,'" Tutu said.
Throughout the protest area, people held aloft signs in English, Spanish, Chinese and many other languages. One contingent of Iraqis carried dummies representing possible victims of any attack.
"Drop Bush, not bombs," read one sign. A bright green banner written in Arabic announced, "The world says no to war."
Bush issued no public comment yesterday on the worldwide protests. The administration maintains Saddam is in breach of United Nations orders to declare and destroy his chemical, biological and nuclear weapons programs. U.N. weapons inspectors have been pressing Baghdad for more information about the weapons.
The administration also has tried to make the case that Iraq shelters and supports members of al Qaeda, Osama bin Laden's terrorist network.
Polls show a majority of Americans back the use of force as long as the United Nations is a willing partner in military action. Far fewer support a unilateral war.
Many expressed the belief yesterday that any war with Iraq would be less about Saddam's weapons of mass destruction than about Iraq's oil. Scores of signs read, "No Blood for Oil," and protesters chanted, "One, two, three, four, we don't want your oil war."
A number of demonstrators, generally concerned about energy consumption, targeted the drivers of sport utility vehicles marooned in the sea of pedestrians.
One vehicle, a black Lincoln Navigator, caught the eye of a group of protesters on Third Avenue early in the afternoon. The protesters swarmed around the full-size Navigator, one waving a sign that read, "If war is inevitable, start drafting SUV drivers."
Jason Garber, a student from Burlington, Vt., shouted: "Do not let people die so you can drive a bigger car!"
The driver kept his window closed and his eyes ahead.
Earlier in the day, people in more than a dozen New Jersey communities, from Newark to Princeton and deep into South Jersey, staged smaller protests as they waited for trains into Manhattan.
Tim Reagan, 25, stood on the platform at the New Brunswick train station, passing out "Jesus was a Pacifist" bumper stickers.
"You can love Iraq and not love Saddam Hussein, just the same as you can love America and not love George Bush," the East Brunswick man said. "Iraqis need food, not bombs."
Briavel Holcomb, 61, who came to the United States from England 40 years ago, wore on her back a sign that identified her as a "Granny for peace."
"I am absolutely opposed to Saddam Hussein. He is an evil man," Holcomb said. "But there are better ways of taking care of him. This is a war that American should not be a part of."
Staff writers Mark Mueller, Tom Feeney, Matthew J. Dowling and Kasi Addison and Star-Ledger wire services contributed to this report.
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