Photos: Scott Lynch

Good morning, East Village.

Yesterday we spent 19 hours live-blogging May Day activities throughout the city: you can find our initial report here and our follow-up here. There was even a David Byrne cameo. Now a video of one of the arrests has popped up on YouTube (hat tip to Google Alerts). And above, here are Scott Lynch’s photos of Tom Morello’s “guitarmy” in Bryant Park and the festivities at Union Square.

Elsewhere: More Than Usual spots a swastika on the construction plywood at 51 Astor Place.

Jeremiah’s Vanishing New York discovers that sculptor Randy Hage has created a miniature version of Mars Bar. Read more…

Photos: Tim Schreier

A May Day march from Union Square to Wall Street, which some estimated to be over 30,000 people strong, ended with hundreds of participants gathering at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Plaza near Battery Park, and then at Zuccotti Park after they were pushed out of the plaza by police.

The permitted march, which began after Tom Morello and members of his “guitarmy” performed at Union Square, stretched many blocks down Broadway and was both leisurely and boisterous. There was, however, the occasional scuffle: as The Local previously reported, bystanders booed and chanted “Shame!” as a photographer was arrested for climbing atop a food cart to take bird’s-eye photos. The police estimated that there were “above 30” arrests throughout the day, but were not able to give an exact number as of 2 a.m. Read more…

Today on The Local, we’re not only looking back at the May Day riot of 1990 (stay tuned for more on that), we’re also on the ground at a number of events planned city-wide and in the East Village. Below, you’ll find real-time updates from our reporters Jared Malsin (@jmalsin) and Evan Bleier (@itishowitis), as well as our contributing photographers Tim Schreier, Scott Lynch (@scoboco), Susan Keyloun, and others. We’ll also be linking to other online coverage. E-mail us, Tweet at us, or leave a comment if you have tips or want us to follow you on Twitter. And if you have photos to share, add them to our Flickr group.

Suzanne Rozdeba

May Day is almost upon us, and with it will come a citywide carnival of Occupy Wall Street demonstrations.

But what will May Day actually look like in New York City and in the East Village? Will we see orderly marchers proceeding peacefully between police barricades? Or will Wall Street burn, as the graffiti on Avenue A warns? Or should we expect, as Jerry Rubin predicted for the 1972 Democratic National Convention, “ten thousand naked hippies” marching on Wall Street?

Asked to predict the size of the demonstrations, Occupy organizer Marisa Holmes, 25, told The Local that May 1 will be on par with the movement’s fall protests or larger. “It won’t be a general strike but it will be substantial,” said the freelance film editor and graduate student at Hunter College. Read more…

Suzanne Rozdeba

Good morning, East Village.

The Local snapped the above shot a day before longstanding vegetarian spot Kate’s Joint was seized by its landlord yesterday, presumably due to the back rent it owed.

Gothamist reports that a National Lawyers Guild observer is suing the NYPD for wrongfully arresting him on Second Avenue between East 12th and 13th Streets during an Occupy Wall Street march back in the early hours of New Year’s Day.

A real estate broker tells The Voice that you can still get a deal in the East Village. “You could get a small, two-bedroom apartment [in a walk-up], with a kitchen you could cook in for $3,000 a month,” she says. “I’m not saying the rooms are going to be the size of Texas, but I think that’s a bargain. And you have fantastic restaurants.”
Read more…

Who are the men and women seeking to occupy Union Square Park? So far we’ve met Karin Hofmann and Justin Stone-Diaz; Fathema Shadida and Tim “Chyno” Chin; John Eustor and Carlton Hall; and Ed Mortimer and James Pistocco. Today, in the final installment of The Local’s series, meet two more of your new neighbors.

Jared Malsin

Name: Sam Wood
Age: 22
Originally from: Farmingdale, New York
Current residence: Full-time occupier. “I’ve spent a decent amount of nights here in Union Square.”
Job before joining occupy: Unemployed
Current job: Full-time occupier, unemployed Read more…

Who are the men and women seeking to occupy Union Square Park? So far we’ve met Karin Hofmann and Justin Stone-Diaz; Fathema Shadida and Tim “Chyno” Chin; and John Eustor and Carlton Hall. Today, meet two more of your new neighbors.

Jared Malsin

Name: Ed Mortimer
Age: 56
Originally from: Connecticut
Current residence: Full-time occupier. Couch surfing. Occasionally sleeping on street.
Current job: Volunteer street medic
Looking for work? No. Dedicated to work with Occupy: “I’ve never worked so hard in my whole life.” Read more…

Who are the men and women seeking to occupy Union Square Park? So far we’ve met Karin Hofmann and Justin Stone-Diaz as well as Fathema Shadida and Tim “Chyno” Chin. Today, meet two more of your new neighbors.

Jared Malsin

Name: John Eustor
Age: 46
Originally from: Queens
Current residence: Was a full time occupier at Zuccotti Park, currently staying in New Jersey.
Current job: Unemployed computer programmer
Looking for work? “I’ve been looking for work, yeah, but I’m looking for work that is not in that corporate mindset. I worked in pharmaceuticals, banking. I worked on Wall Street for seven years. I worked for all these different kind of industries and they’re all the same.” Read more…

Who are the men and women seeking to occupy Union Square Park? Yesterday we met Fathema Shadida and Tim “Chyno” Chin. Today, meet two more of your new neighbors. 

Jared Malsin

Name: Karin Hofmann
Age: 69
Originally from: Germany. Emigrated to the Bronx at age 12.
Current residence: East 12th Street
Current job: Retired
Ideology: “Definitely a Liberal, and I say it proudly.” Read more…

Jared Malsin

Some 200 protesters gathered in Union Square yesterday evening to demand justice for Trayvon Martin, the unarmed black teenager shot dead by a neighborhood watch volunteer in Florida in February.

City Council Member Letitia James, of Brooklyn, was among those who participated in the rally. Referring to the hooded sweatshirt worn by the 17-year-old the day he died, she told The Local, “Today, all of us are Trayvon Martin, and today this powerful article of clothing is going to be transformed into an instrument for change, and for justice for this young man.”

The hoodie has become a national symbol following the Feb. 26 shooting in Sanford, Fla., inspiring everything from hooded church services to a tribute song by “Hoodie Guthrie.” On March 21 activists including members of the Occupy movement staged a “Million Hoodie March” that stepped off from Union Square. Read more…

Jared Malsin Fathema Shadida in Union Square Park

Since members of the Occupy Wall Street movement launched their attempted occupation of Union Square three weeks ago, the protesters have engaged in a nightly tug-o-war with police. The occupiers have responded to the nightly closure of Union Square Park and arrests with rap battles, sleep-ins and dangling donuts on strings.

But who are the men and women seeking to occupy the square? In hopes of learning more about our new neighbors (some of them old neighbors, actually), The Local spoke with 10 core activists, all of whom have spent at least one night sleeping on the edge of Union Square, and all of whom are dedicating their days to the new protest camp. Here are the vitals on two of them, with more to come every day this week.

Name: Fathema Shadida
Age: 57
Originally from: Sahara, Egypt
Current residence: Brooklyn
Job before joining occupy: New York City Parks Enforcement Patrol Officer Read more…

Daniel MaurerA woman protests the arrest of Mesiah
Hameed earlier in the day.

Multiple arrests – five of which were witnessed by The Local – occurred this afternoon during a march protesting police brutality organized by the Occupy Wall Street movement. The arrest of a teenager drew outrage when she was carried to a police van with her bra exposed.

Susan Howard, the New York City chapter coordinator for the National Lawyers Guild, said that an estimated 21 people were arrested during Occupy-related activities throughout the day, with “about a dozen” arrested during the march from Zuccotti Park to Union Square. The police were not yet able to confirm a number of arrests.

Videographer Paul Davis, who witnessed the arrest of Mesiah Hameed on Mott Street below Prince Street around 2:50 p.m., said the teenager was obstructing police movement before she was detained. “She was blocking the scooters from going,” he said. “Civil disobedience. Somebody grabbed her, one of the deputy inspectors.” Read more…

Photos: Tim Schreier

More than a thousand people rallied in Union Square on Wednesday evening with the parents of Trayvon Martin, an unarmed teenager who was shot dead in Florida in late February. The protest, dubbed “A Million Hoodies March for Trayvon Martin” on Facebook and elsewhere, attracted an angry and racially diverse crowd of New Yorkers.

“We’re not going to stop until we get justice for Trayvon,” Tracy Martin told the crowd of his son, according to The Lede. “George Zimmerman took Trayvon’s life for nothing.” Mr. Zimmerman, a white Hispanic neighborhood watch volunteer, shot the teenager after telling a 911 dispatcher he had seen a “black male” who “looks like he’s up to no good.” A controversial self-defense law has kept him from being charged.  Read more…

Jared MalsinA demonstrator taunted officers with a doughnut on a string.

At least one person was injured and another arrested when police confronted Occupy Wall Street demonstrators in Union Square early Wednesday morning.

Shortly after midnight, police moved protesters, some of which had been sleeping in the park since Saturday night, off of the south steps of the square and onto the sidewalk before sweeping through the encampment and rousting reclining protesters.

Police arrested activist Yoni Miller, 18, of Brooklyn, dragging him away by the shoulders. In an interview with The Local moments before his arrest, Mr. Miller said, “I think we will eventually be arrested.” Read more…

Daniel Maurer At Astor Place shortly before 4 p.m.

Hundreds of people protesting police brutality have marched from Union Square, down Broadway, down East 8th Street and St. Marks Place, and through Tompkins Square Park heading toward Avenue D. Follow The Local and its editor on Twitter as we tweet minute-by-minute updates from the scene. Tweet us your own updates and add photos to our Flickr pool as you take them. We’ll have more from the scene as this unfolds.

Update | 7:15 p.m. The event was the October 22nd Coalition’s 16th Annual National Day of Protest to Stop Police Brutality, Repression and the Criminalization of a Generation. Similar marches were planned in 27 other cities today. The march ended with a gathering at Avenue D and East Sixth Street, outside of the Jacob Riis Houses, where a group of about 350 – including members of the Communist organization Ignite, Occupy The Hood, and others – listened to short call-and-response speeches.

Among those who took the bullhorn were Carl Dix of the Revolutionary Communist Party and the Stop Mass Incarceration Network (which spearheaded a “Stop and Frisk” protest that ended in the arrest of Cornel West and others in Harlem yesterday) as well as the parents of Elijah Foster-Bey, a teenager who was involved in a shootout with police in Brooklyn a year ago. “Shoot first, ask questions later is not right,” said Mr. Foster-Bey’s mother, Ellen Cross.

About 65 police officers lined Avenue D, many of them riding motor scooters and some of them surveying the scene from rooftops as demonstrators chanted, “Come down and face the truth, no hiding on the roof.” Their number had dwindled to about 20 community affairs officers by 6 p.m., when the crowd began thinning. The Stop Mass Incarceration Network will organize their next demonstration against “stop and frisk” policies during a meeting at St. Mary’s Church in Harlem, tomorrow at 2 p.m.

Update | Oct. 23, 12:45 a.m. We’ve now posted video from the demonstration. Watch it here.

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Last week, The Guardian reported that Anthony Bologna, the senior police officer who was videotaped using pepper spray on the eyes of protesters, was previously named in a lawsuit alleging police brutality at the 2004 protests of the Republican national convention. The Local has now acquired court documents, some of which are posted below, that show it is just one of nine lawsuits in which the officer is named, all of them alleging the violation of demonstrators’ constitutional rights.

The lawsuits, dating as far back as 2003, accuse Inspector Bologna of personal involvement in numerous false arrests, use of excessive force against demonstrators, and violation of free speech rights. In each of the cases, he was named alongside a list of defendants including Mayor Michael Bloomberg, police commissioner Raymond Kelly, and other senior officials.

Seven of the lawsuits resulted from the arrests of protesters at the Republican National Convention in 2004. Two earlier suits followed arrests at the World Economic Forum in 2002. Four of the cases resulted in settlements in which the city agreed to pay as much as $30,000. The other five remain open. Read more…