Scenes from a strike: Occupy Wall Street’s back, all right

While they fell far short of a citywide general strike, Occupy Wall Street’s May Day protests did manage to be exuberant, boisterous, playfully confrontational and, yes, well-attended, despite what you might have seen (or failed to see because of lack of coverage) in mainstream media. I missed the morning’s events, but the afternoon mass meeting at Union Square and the march south down Broadway to Wall Street and the financial district were blissful and showed democracy and city life as they should be lived: sweating, shouting, smiling, in a crowd of strangers who somehow feel like friends. And those lovely surreal moments, like these three NYPD standing their ground at an American Apparel store, with a phalanx of summer sportswear–clad mannequins at their back.