Occupy demonstrators hold daylong protest

Angry clashes, scores of arrests and a boisterous nighttime march across the Brooklyn Bridge marked the two-month anniversary of the Occupy Wall Street demonstration Thursday.

The daylong series of rallies and protests snarled traffic and caused workday slowdowns in the bustling Wall Street financial district. Grade school students in a lower Manhattan neighborhood had to pass a phalanx of police officers and protesters. Workers at the New York Stock Exchange were asked to show identification before they were allowed onto the busy floor.

The massive union-backed rally and march was the biggest of scores of similar "day of action" protests around the country. "Ninety-nine percent of the country has no legitimate representation in Congress or the president," said marcher Lydia Gerson, a CUNY administrator. "We need a radical redistribution of wealth."

Marchers carried signs such as "We are the 99 percent" and chanted slogans like "All day, all week, Occupy Wall Street" and "This is what democracy looks like."

As they walked, a powerful light projected the slogan "We are the 99 percent" on the side of a nearby skyscraper.

In a day of sometimes violent clashes between police and demonstrators, scores of people were arrested and one group of students occupied a study hall at the New School for Social Research on Fifth Avenue and vowed not to leave. New School officials said they would not evict the protesters.

Not everyone was celebrating. Some workers, commuters and tourists grumbled that the protesters were clogging the already-packed area.

"If they got a problem, they need to go to Washington, D.C., and stop disrupting people who are trying to make a living," said Litty Hado, 69, a Millburn, N.J., resident who was visiting the 9/11 Memorial.

The day started with protests near Zuccotti Park, where the Occupy Wall Street movement began Sept. 17 and which police raided early Tuesday. Demonstrators also gathered near Wall Street. They clashed with baton-wielding officers as they tried to storm the New York Stock Exchange, which was blocked off with barricades. Workers with identification were allowed past the barricades, and the stock exchange opened on time and operated normally.

Many marchers complained of police brutality, and one protester at Zuccotti Park was photographed with blood streaming down his forehead. Police reported 10 protesters and seven officers injured as of late afternoon, including one officer whose hand was cut by a flying piece of glass and five hit in the face by a liquid believed to be vinegar. About 250 people had been arrested by Thursday night, police said.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg said police had been expecting as many as 10,000 protesters based on what activists had been saying online. But he said there had been "minimal disruption."

"Most protesters have, in all fairness, acted responsibly," he said.

The marchers were demonstrating against an array of issues rooted in economic inequality, including what they called out-of-control capitalism.

The protest could partly determine whether the movement will regain momentum after Tuesday's raid on Zuccotti Park. Occupiers hoped the razing of their tent city would reinvigorate a cause that had started to stall.

Thursday night on the Brooklyn Bridge, demonstrators who had gathered earlier in Foley Square slowly made the long walk from Manhattan to a park on the other side.

"I'm thinking for the first time we're confronting some real important issues in this country," said Manhattan elementary schoolteacher Lucas Rotman, 48, as he walked quietly across the bridge with the throng. "A lot of that can be tied to economic disparity in this country."

The demonstrations attracted some high-profile protesters. Hip-hop businessman and political activist Russell Simmons marched and called Occupy Wall Street "the beginning of an American revolution. . . . Our government has been hijacked by corporations, and I'm here to stop that."

The protests also spread to Long Island, where nearly 100 people lined the curb on Hempstead Turnpike in Levittown Thursday night to support Occupy Wall Street, waving signs and getting raucous horn-blowing in return. "Bail out people, not banks," read one sign. "Help the 99%," read another.

With Alfonso A. Castillo, Matthew Chayes, Anthony M. DeStefano, Gary Dymski, Keith Herbert, Chau Lam

and Kery Murakami