During my lunch hour, I took a field trip downtown to Armory Park (Tucson's "official" gathering place for the May Day protest), just to see how chaotic it would be. The rest of Midtown (where I work) appeared pretty typical for a Monday, so I wasn't sure what I would find. When I arrived at the park, I was not altogether surprised: a few hundred people, tops -- mostly Latinos, a few gringos, a few school-age children, and a few policemen. No concessions, but a speaker did announce the arrival of some free carne asada (in Spanish, of course) while I was there. There were also water cooler dispensers in the park (also free, presumably). Since I did not have an infinite lunch hour, however, I passed on both.
Both The Arizona Daily Star and KVOA News 4 are reporting roughly the same as what I witnessed. The Daily Star is also reporting that the crowds in Phoenix were not much larger. Protesters even managed to form a human chain that was several city blocks(!) long. So much for a 25-mile human chain. That wouldn't have been safe, anyway. But I digress.
From Armory Park, I headed back to Midtown and checked out Park Place Mall. I was, again, not surprised by what I saw: a parking lot filled with the usual amount of cars for a Monday afternoon. Even a few license plates from Sonora, MX. Whoops! Somebody didn't get the memo.
I'll try to get photographs of the day's "festivities" uploaded later tonight. Not that there's really anything to see...
UPDATE, at 7:35 p.m. PDT on 5/1/06: As promised, my photographs of Armory Park earlier today. Click on any of the photos for a larger image.
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Apparently, the "main stage," with music, signs, and occasionally, (Spanish) speakers:
Looking northwest, from the southeast corner of the park, as "hundreds" of people gather:
A larger gathering, near the center of the park:
Looking east, another view of the main stage -- and the invisible crowd in front of it. The (free) carne asada preparations can be seen between the two palm trees on the right side of the photo:
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