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It’s Wednesday.
Weather: Pleasant and mostly bright. High in the upper 70s.
Alternate-side parking: Suspended through Sunday.
For many New Yorkers, Barclays Center had exemplified inequality: The arena, in Brooklyn, was made possible with public subsidies and an eminent-domain seizure that displaced people so their properties could be demolished.
After the arena opened, in 2012, the entertainer Awkwafina referred to it as “that mess Jay-Z call a stadium.” (At the time, Jay-Z was perhaps the project’s best-known stakeholder.)
Then came the protests after the May 25 killing of George Floyd, a black man, at the hands of the Minneapolis police.
Now many of the city’s largest demonstrations are starting or making stops at Barclays Center’s large public plaza. And some of the people who didn’t support the development years ago have found themselves feeling grateful for the space.
[Read more about how the arena became a protest epicenter.]
“When it was first built, I thought it was a waste of space,” said Margo Gibson, 51, who lives two blocks from the arena. “And when I was there the other day I thought: It’s not enough.”
The space is also being used as a town square. Rells Jones, 32, went there over the weekend to register people to vote. “I call it mecca,” Ms. Jones said. “This is where everything happens.”
In other protest-related news:
Hundreds of black and Hispanic police officers in the city have found themselves caught between competing loyalties, my colleagues Ashley Southall and Edgar Sandoval reported. Many of the officers say they want to defeat racism within the Police Department, but most demonstrators have made it clear that they don’t consider them allies.
Edwin Raymond, a black lieutenant, is among the plaintiffs who sued the city and the department in 2015 over racial discrimination in enforcement and promotions. “People have no idea that I identify with them, I understand them, I’m here for them,” he said of the protesters. “I’ve been trying to be here as a change agent.”
Officer Oriade Harbor, 38, a transgender black man, said that even though he often speaks out against what he sees as social injustice, when he wears a uniform he is seen as “part of a system that is oppressive to black people.”
Currently, fewer than half of the department’s 36,000 uniformed members are white. Since Mayor Bill de Blasio took office in 2014, the number of Hispanic officers has grown to 29 percent and the number of Asian officers has doubled to 9 percent, but the number of black officers has remained steady at 15 percent, according to Police Department data.
[Read more about how black officers feel about the protesters.]
Thousands of protesters gathered outside the Brooklyn Museum over the weekend for a rally and silent march for transgender people of color. The event was one of the most notable demonstrations in the city since the killing of Mr. Floyd, and my colleague Anushka Patil reported on how it came together.
West Dakota, a drag queen in Brooklyn, told Ms. Patil that she had wanted to speak out against police violence and racial injustice while providing a safe space for black transgender people. Ms Patil wrote: “Her mentor, a drag queen named Merrie Cherry, who is black, said she had seen silent marches in other states and would have felt safer attending an event like that, West Dakota recalled.”
So many people attended the rally on Sunday that crowds flooded the grounds of the museum and spilled out several blocks. People wore white clothes and face coverings; safety teams along the route provided hand sanitizer.
One speaker at the event was Melania Brown, sister of Layleen Polanco, a transgender woman who was found dead in 2019 in a cell at Rikers Island.
“Black trans lives matter! My sister’s life mattered!” Ms. Brown said in her speech. “If one goes down, we all go down — and I’m not going nowhere.”
From The Times
Cuomo Announces Support of U.S. Open in New York
The ‘Poisoned’ Shake Shack Milkshakes and an N.Y.P.D. on Edge
When Rich New Yorkers Fled, These Workers Kept the City Running
New York’s New Bar Stool: The Sidewalk
Want more news? Check out our full coverage.
The Mini Crossword: Here is today’s puzzle.
What we’re reading
A noose was found in Marcus Garvey Park in Harlem. The police were investigating. [The City]
A 31-year-old man who has been arrested more than 100 times was charged in connection with an attack on a 92-year-old woman in Manhattan. [ABC]
A popular restaurant on the Upper West Side, Oxbow Tavern, is closing for good. [Eater New York]
And finally: New York’s first Pride march
This month is the 50th anniversary of the first Pride march, which was held in New York City on June 28, 1970. The event — officially known as the Christopher Street Liberation Day March — was spearheaded by Brenda Howard, a bisexual activist, for the first anniversary of the Stonewall uprising.
Similar marches took place that year in Chicago, San Francisco and Los Angeles. In New York, the march’s route covered about 50 blocks and drew just a few thousand participants.
One of the participants in New York was Mark Segal, an early member of the Gay Liberation Front and marshal for the march. He said the march “was a reflection of us: out, loud and proud.”
“We didn’t have a police permit, so no one knew exactly what would happen — no one knew the type of force that might greet us. So we held self-defense classes and learned how to protect ourselves.
"As a marshal, I especially had to know how to react and control the marchers if we were attacked. When we reached 23rd Street, I climbed up a pole, looked back and saw a crowd stretch all the way to Christopher Street.
“Eventually we made it to Central Park, just like we had promised — and us activists transformed a movement from a few ragtag militants to thousand strong. As my friend Jerry Hoose used to say about that year, ‘we went from the shadows to sunlight.’
“Today, my original marshal’s badge is on display in the Smithsonian.”
It’s Wednesday — make history.
Metropolitan Diary: Goose chase
Dear Diary:
Every morning, I take my dog for a walk along the Hudson River. I often hear a cacophony of honking geese that have migrated to the river’s banks to nest. They can be extremely hostile in the company of their newborns, and I know to keep my distance.
One day, I noticed a family of geese there that appeared to be in a panic: Two goslings had somehow gotten trapped on the wrong side of a low fence.
Should I try to help? I know that geese are not friendly on a good day, but these geese and their goslings were in desperate need of an intervention. Should I reach over the fence to try to grab the goslings?
I tried, and they ran in opposite directions.
Desperate to help but realizing that I couldn’t do it alone, I stopped two men and asked if they would assist me. They quickly turned and walked away while shouting that they didn’t want to get involved.
I stopped two younger men as they approached and asked if they would help.
Without hesitating, one jumped into action. He suggested that instead of trying to catch the wayward goslings, we should temporarily pull the low fence up out of the ground. That, he suggested, would allow the goslings to run under it to rejoin their parents.
It was a clever plan, and it worked perfectly. I had helped to reunite a family and I was delighted.
— Temi Sacks
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