Results tagged “demonstration”

Tomorrow afternoon (at 2 p.m.) Times Square will serve as the stage for a Health Care rally, the NY Times reports. Over 75 "Democratic and health-related groups that support President Obama’s goals for overhauling the health care system" will converge on the Crossroads of the World to get their voices heard. The paper points out that amongst those groups will be the Upper West Side Baby Boomers and "Raising Women’s Voices, a group that mobilizes women as advocates for better health care. They and others want to ensure that any final legislation guarantees that pregnant women will have health insurance." Currently 13% of pregnant women are uninsured, with some insurers classifying pregnancy as a pre-existing condition and declining coverage. CityRoom reports that "midmorning, groups of demonstrators will congregate at sites across the city, including Mary Immaculate Hospital in Queens, which has closed. They will then walk to West 42nd Street and Seventh Avenue, where the demonstration will begin." President Obama's website notes that the rally is in tribute of the late Ted Kennedy.

Disgruntled delivery workers chanted "No Justice, No Noodles!" at a raucous demonstration outside Union Square's Republic restaurant yesterday; the crowd was gathered to protest against co-owner Jonathan Morr and his alleged retaliation against eight workers who filed a federal labor-violation lawsuit last April. Seven of those eight workers remain, and they say that since the lawsuit they've had their hours cut dramatically and have been subjected to constant harassment from management, including being cursed at and being served rotten food. Representatives from the 318 Restaurant Workers Union and the Justice Will Be Served! campaign, who organized the lawsuit, were there to support the workers.

Harvest in the Square, Union Square's yearly food and wine fundraiser to benefit the Union Square Partnership's "ongoing beautification efforts" to the park, is self-described as "Great Food. Great Fun. Great Fundraiser. Everyone Leaves Feeling Great." That might not be the case tonight, though, when a mob of rabble rousers converge to jeer at VIPs as they arrive at the "pricey party tent." The protesters' beef, as you'll recall, is with the partnership's controversial attempt to turn the park's 78-year-old Pavilion into a year-round restaurant. Last we checked, a judge agreed with the restaurant opponents. But that doesn't mean they still can't get together and taunt the swells. To join them, assemble at the George Washington statue at 6 p.m. and "bring your own pots & pans and something to bang with!" Organizers promise to provide chef's hats. Details.

The city spent five years and an estimated $1 million, give or take, fighting off a lawsuit brought by a group of 52 activists who were arrested en masse during an Iraq war protest in April 2003 outside the offices of the Carlyle Group, an investment firm with ties to the Bush family and major holdings in the military-defense sector. And that “bonfire of legal expenses,” as the Times puts it, is just the cherry on top of the $2,007,000 settlement that will now be paid by the city to end the suit.

A lively, discontented rabble marched through the East Village Friday night, protesting what they see as the neighborhood’s ongoing desiccation, caused by “real estate developers, landlords, yuppie wine bars and Republicans.” Organized by longtime gadfly John Penley, the group swelled to approximately 100 protesters, who jeered, sang, read poetry and generally condemned others for enjoying fine wine and luxury apartments.

When it comes to turbo-gentrification, longtime East Village activist John Penley has drawn a line in the sand at the Bowery Wine Co.; the newish wine bar co-owned by actor Bruce Willis. Penley, who joined Jerry "the Peddler" Wade in pushing the Parks Department to permit this August’s concert commemorating the 20th anniversary of the Tompkins Square Park riots, not only objects to the “yuppie” wine bar’s sterile aesthetics but also Willis’s GOP support. A couple months back Penley announced plans to “roast a whole hog” named Bruce.

Just a day after Al Sharpton joined with Critical Mass in Union Square to protest police harassment of cycling protesters, he was leading a march in Harlem decrying youth violence. The march was instigated by the Memorial Day shooting of 7 young people following a holiday basketball tournament. Stemming from an ongoing dispute between two groups of kids, gunshots rang out along Lenox Ave. over a stretch of 10 blocks.