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525 Market Street ... March 20th 2003(PAGE UPDATED WITH ADDITIONAL PHOTO'S AT 5:00PM, MARCH 20th)Attached photo's taken outside 525 Market St around 9:00am on March 20th 2003. As I arrived at the office at 7:00am, demonstrators were gathering on the sidewalk and just as I walked past (coincidence I am sure!) they all rushed out into the street to block it. It was a coordinated effort, as I understand they have taken over several other intersections around San Francisco at the same time. 
The picture to the left is the view from 30th floor looking down on the intersection. The two buses are trapped between the rows of demonstrators - one set at the lower half of the pciture (in the shade) and the others in the top left. Next to the bus in the middle of the picture are the first of many police vans to arrive.
NOTE: To those in England who are receiving this, I apologize for using the American spellings and phraseology (e.g. sidewalk for pavement, apologize for apologise) but I had to pick one language as I really can't be bothered to do this twice!
Now a few photo's from street level......
Look carefully and you can see demonstrators lying on the ground, waiting to be arrested.
At this point I went for coffee.....watching along with everyone else as shown on the left here ...
Once arrested, they were led to the "corral".
Most people on the sidewalk are simply watching ... many whilst drinking
their morning coffee. A few pro-war people also around .. one of the most
innovative shouting "Thank you anti-war protestors ... all the police
overtime you are forcing is taking money away from nursing! We have enough
police, enough bombs and a big enough army. Let's spend more money on our own
people and stop wasting it here". He was soon shouted down!
One of my colleagues chose an unfortunate moment to walk past the demonstration, and arrived in the office with the following quote "People who don't speak French should NOT attempt to sing "La Marseillaise". The police allowed the band to stay, but kept them on the sidewalk....
You can also see the muni tracks ... although buses, taxi's and cars were being diverted the F-Line railway was totally halted. As of 9:20am, 2 hours
after this started, I look out of the window and see that the police almost have
the street clear.
It was all remarkably peaceful (to this point), but as you will see below,
the police don't necessarily expect it to remain that way.
A few interesting quotes (or as near as I can remember).... "There are too many of them-we can't win" "There are some trouble causers beginning to gather - look at the guy over there in all black - those are the guys we're watching" "They are all over the city. They tried a couple of times to get the Bay Bridge but that won't happen unless we make a mistake"
When I asked him about BART and whether they could cause a problem.... "BART won't put up with it ... they will keep them off the trains" "Muni drivers just stay out of the way ... they have a rotten job and they won't do anything to put themselves at risk" He is in for a long day, but was in good humour (my one concession to English
spelling!) and quite happy to chat.
*UPDATE* 5:00PM, MARCH 20th 2003At 3:00pm, our office was officially closed due to notification that the demonstrators were going to attempt to disrupt the evening commute. I am therefore updating the website on a BART ride home, and including pictures from a lunchtime sortie to a local Indian Restaurant (Naan'n'Curry) for a very good lunch and some more close up views of demonstrations. It is safe to say that the demonstrators have been very successful today in
disrupting the financial district of the city of San Francisco. They have
effectively closed Market Street most of the day, and have caused disruption in
many other areas. BART itself had to stop trans-bay service for a while due to
some teenagers throwing rocks at trains, and in a number of places there have
been incidents of vandalism. For the most part though, the demonstrations have
been peaceful but noisy, and at no stage did I feel at all unsafe. The police
too have been generally good natured - at least where I saw them.
So, back to the photos....
It has actually been quite useful for locating the latest demonstrations - all you do is look for the helicopters circling....
The size of the crowd, and the numbers of police, can be seen in this shot looking down Market towards the Ferry Terminal. The photo is taken from the steps outside the entrance to Montgomery BART station. As stated before, even with this many people, you felt reasonably safe at all times.
The police plan, once the road is clear, is simply to keep everyone on the sidewalk. This is just prior to Market Street being reopened, and as you can see the police are ready and waiting for people to try and block the road again.
And, finally .........................a little bit of humour. Two of my favourite shots...
Unfortunately I couldn't get him to turn for the shot....the funniest part is that behind me was a police truck full of his colleagues (similarly attired) and shouting at him to get a move on!
As always, when I take photo's of people I ask them if they mind. I would like to thank all the police who had absolutely no problem providing photo's, and were very friendly in answering questions.
SimonPhoto.Net - March 20th 2003 |
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The picture on the right is taken from
right outside our office, 525 Market Street. You can see the demonstrators lined
up across the street effectively blocking all traffic. 
Taken over the viewers heads, the police and fire department are attempting
to clear the demonstration. Look carefully and you can see a few people being
led away, along with the fire department (with circular saw) preparing to remove
some more handcuffs.
As the police and fire
department continue to move the demonstrators, look to the middle
left of the
photo and you can see the top of a tuba. About 40 of the demonstrators turned up
with musical instruments and attempted ( loose usage of the word)
to play various songs.
Probably my favorite (yes, there is that American spelling again!) picture as
the fire department and police department figure out what to do next. You can
clearly see the demonstrators lying in the street, blocking it totally.
Not quite in focus, but given that I was holding the camera high above my
head it wasn't easy! Photo shows the fire department with red circular saw removing the handcuffs
that he demonstrators used to chain themselves across the street.
As I returned to the office, took this photo right outside the building. The
policeman is busy preparing yet more nylon handcuffs.
As you can imagine, the
threat of an aircraft collision over the city is probably the most significant
risk today. At times, other than the police helicopters, I have seen up to 4
news helicopters and 3 news aircraft. 
Similar shot, looking back down Market. The police were deploying rapidly,
but were severely outnumbered. This is now around 1:00pm, and Market Street had
effectively been closed for 6 hours. 
