Two New School students and one academically unaffiliated protester were arrested last night for blocking traffic on Fifth Avenue during a demonstration against police handling of last week's occupation of a university building. According to the New School Free Press, about 150 students, faculty, and supporters gathered outside the site of the occupation around 6 p.m. to condemn the NYPD and, once again, demand the resignation of president Bob Kerrey, who protesters blame for encouraging what they're calling a "brutal" and "violent" end to Friday's sit-in.
After some speeches and chanting, the group proceeded to Kerrey's house on West 11th Street for some more chanting, then advanced to the site of last December's occupation at 65 Fifth Avenue. The Free Press reports that police were trying to get students onto the sidewalk because they were blocking traffic, and that's when the arrests were made. Angered, the protesters proceeded down Fifth Avenue, some sending a hardcore Message to the Man by "kicking garbage bags and orange cones into the middle of the street."
Then the unthinkable happened: The New School occupiers joined forces with the Take Back NYU occupiers, forging a united front of Keffiyah scarf solidarity outside the Kimmel Center, some 60 malcontents strong. And as if that wasn't badass enough, mayoral candidate and ubiquitous gadfly Reverend Billy was on the scene; in a speech to the crowd, he strongly condemned the "corporatization of the two schools."
After he was done, the 30 remaining New School students wandered off through Washington Square Park toward the Sixth Precinct to demand the release of their comrades. But along the way, an argument broke out between the protesters and NYU students playing whiffleball. One of the complacent bourgeois ball-playing sheep told the Washington Square News, "We were just playing. And they said we’re wasting our money going to NYU." (More photos here.)