A great many of you were at Monday's demo outside the offices of the New York City Partnership, so you already know what happened, but for those who couldn't make it, here's the scoop:

About 75 demonstrators gathered in front of the Museum of the American Indian -- a damned impressive turn-out for a protest way down in the financial district, especially one at 7:30 on a Monday morning. Major kudos to everyone who literally rose to the occasion! With their banners and noisemakers, they made a loud and colorful presence in front of the Bowling Green subway station and handed out tons of literature to commuters. Shortly after 8:00AM, they got in position to march down Whitehall to the offices of the Partnership. But then suddenly they were told by march organizers to head the other way, down State Street instead, and as they rounded the corner seconds later, they saw four protesters holding "Save the Gardens" and "NYC Partnership Destroys Gardens" banners chained in a line across the street, blocking morning rush-hour traffic.

The four of us (Email Army members MP and EG, longtime LES activist and artist Seth, and yours truly) had gathered in another location with the amazing DC, who communicated with the main group by cell phone and coordinated all the legal support. We had worried beforehand that we might not have time to get ourselves fully chained in before the police moved against us -- after all, we had to string 60 feet of chain across the street from lamppost to lamppost -- but our fears were far from realized: It was a good 10 minutes before the first police officer arrived, and a full 57 minutes before they got us unchained! (Among other things, they were never able to get a bolt cutter from the precinct to the site because the traffic was so backed up -- they ended up getting a team from Emergency Services to pick the locks.)

One imagines that the people at the Partnership were not amused . . . especially since thanks to all of your extraordinary efforts, their phones have been ringing off the hook ever since!

Special kudos to DC and RB for sending big bouquets of flowers to the phone receptionists at the Partnership and HPD, along with apologies for the extra workload on behalf of the garden movement. Both receptionists, I must say, sounded notably more cheerful when I called them today than they had sounded yesterday. (Anyone else want to follow D or R's example? E-mail me [gardens@cybergal.com] with your phone number and I'll call you with the address information to give the florist.)

Okay, so we had fun, and still are having fun with the ongoing phone and fax jam. What are we accomplishing?

1) WE SENT A VERY STRONG MESSAGE TO OUR KEY OPPONENTS, THE PARTNERSHIP AND THE CITY. We made them suffer real consequences for bulldozing the gardens. We made it clear that they have greatly underestimated both the depth and the breadth of support for the gardens. We also made it clear that they have underestimated this movement's savvy: Indeed, while the streets around the Partnership were completely unguarded, police from the 9th Precinct massed around the Mendez Garden that morning, convinced that the advertised demo location was a fake and we were going to retake Mendez.

2) WE INCREASED THE VISIBILITY OF THE GARDEN ISSUE. Thousands of people saw the protest, and I've been told by several of the people who were handing out literature that many seemed very sympathetic. Local street vendors took fliers and put them on their tables . . . WEP workers in Battery Park cheered us on . . . people said they'd call the phone numbers listed on the action guides . . . a woman who had been forced to get off a city bus that was stopped by our action said, when she learned what the protest was about, "Oh, in that case, it's worth it." (Mind you, there was no shortage of, shall we say, crankier responses.) Media coverage of the event was disappointing -- the print media ignored it almost completely (there was a tiny item in the DAILY NEWS), and I don't know of any radio coverage. We did get one really great piece of coverage, from the WB11 News At 10, oddly enough. It was a long segment that included both footage of the demo and footage of the gardens, and even featured a tug-at-the-heartstrings interview with a local mom and her kid. Moreover, as an indirect consequence of this coverage,

3) WE PLACED THE ISSUE SOLIDLY ON GIULIANI'S RADAR SCREEN. Before Fran and Jeff disrupted his inauguration, there was no sign that Giuliani had any awareness of what was happening with the gardens. (Indeed, at one of his fall campaign appearances, a garden activist had asked him what his position was on saving community gardens and he said, "Save all of them." Alas, I don't know if anyone got this on tape.)

After the Monday action, a reporter from Channel 11 asked him at his daily press briefing what he had to say about the destruction of the four community gardens in the Lower East Side and he responded defensively and vaguely that he would look into it but was sure that the decision had been made very carefully. (Sorry I don't have the exact quote -- my VCR is also on the fritz. Well, to be honest, I had been partying rather heavily that evening with a bunch of folks from the demo, so my failure to correctly record the news could be better characterized as me being on the fritz. Many thanks to the fine folks from the New York Zapatistas, including Email Army member BL, who thought to tape the segment and are getting us a copy.)

We'll obviously be figuring out ways to keep pressure on Giuliani. You all probably already discovered that the number I gave you to call for Giuliani enmeshes you in a bogus voice-mail jail. Sorry -- I forgot to do what I usually do, which is check out what happens when you call a number before I post it here. I didn't call it myself until yesterday.

DOES ANYONE HAVE A BETTER NUMBER FOR PHONE-JAMMING GIULIANI? I thought it might be both amusing and effective for us to tie up the phone line(s) of his press office for a day or more. Any leads on the numbers to use?

I've rambled on at great length now, so I'll bring this bulletin to a close. After you've made calls for two or three days, take a break. We all used up a lot of energy and need to catch our breath -- this fight's going to continue for a while.

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