I had no idea how many would show up: It was cold but sunny and not windy; I had emailed everyone I could think of (including all the Jewish activists I know who will stage a Darfur rally at the drop of a hat); I didn't have any media contacts so I hoped someone else would alert the press. I didn't make a sign, but Mary made several and I got to hold one of these.

About 10% of the rally came from the Yahoo group I moderate, the NYC Metro Liberal Hawks, which started as a list of NYC LGF readers and has turned into much more than that over the past 2 years.

The following photos are from the Resplendent Mango and Blogmeister. Left to right is me, my anonymous friend, Mary of Exit Zero, and Lisa Ramaci.

I got there about noon and 20 people had already gathered. As we stood around with our signs, more people kept arriving. One guy had a bunch of tiny Danish and American flags to give out. The cheese and crackers lady showed up.

Passersby asked what we were demonstrating about. More people arrived. The security from the office building where the consulate is told us to keep the entrance clear. Later a nice cop told us to go to the plaza across the street since we were blocking the sidewalk.

I worried about people dispersing since we didn't have any official speakers, especially any "names" like Christopher Hitchens. We did have Lisa Ramaci-Vincent (who has way more "moral authority" than Cindy Sheehan), but she didn't want to go first. So after about 10 minutes I asked Mr Snarksmith if he would address the crowd.

He did and then Lisa stepped up, and then a few other people. I would rather not try to reconstruct their speeches; Pamela will have her video up soon and you can see them yourselves.

Since we didn't have a bullhorn or a podium, all the "speeches" were very informal. As others have noted, once we moved across the street to the Plaza, people began spontaneously testifying. I said something fairly incoherent trying to tie together Dag Hammarskjold and the UN and the Patriot Act. (You had to be there.) Someone asked that we keep to the topic and not get into partisan politics, which was a good thing to say. I missed the rest of the speeches because I started wandering around talking to people and once you were out of the inner circle you couldn't hear whoever was speaking.

KT reporter Van and Liberal Hawk Drew with a Danish ham on a stick:

I was interviewed by the New Statesman and the NY Press. The only TV crew was from Columbia Journalism School; they interviewed Mike Weiss and Lisa Ramaci.

A lot of people wanted to talk to Lisa, and I hope she got to publicize her foundation for the families of the local stringers who help journalists, who are murdered in the line of duty. (Which doesn't have a website yet or I would link to it.)

The crowd didn't break up until 1 PM, and I got the feeling a lot of people found their new social scene/support group. Maybe even a few romances were kindled. Someone told me most of the attendees had never been to a protest before. Have we reached the tipping point? Look for that to be the hot topic for the next few weeks, as more of these rallies take place and the MSM finally starts to notice.

Mike emailed Andrew Sullivan about the event, and Andrew said:

I must say that the little band of democrats who gathered in DC had the same experience; and it was really cheering to have been there. These haven't been your usual rallies with moronic chanting. They've been gatherings of individuals in support of individual freedom. And when you love liberty, it shows. In public, there's less anger than friendship, less orthodoxy than spiritedness. Or so it seemed to me.

We did generate a bit of moronic chanting for the TV crew (did they request it?): "Free speech! Free speech! Free speech! Free speech! . . . . "

(My vanity shot.)