May 2, 2025
Tens of thousands of New Yorkers hit the streets yesterday to celebrate workers’ traditional holiday and send a simple message to the Trump administration: “Hands Off!” With entire Federal departments being laid off by Elon Musk‘s ad hoc efficiency cadre to fund another tax cut for the wealthiest Americans, the stakes this year are high. In addition to the outright job losses, there are plans underway to find billions of dollars of savings by paring back safety net programs including Medicaid. The Trump deportation agenda has also shone a spotlight on due process and the Rule of Law. Citizens have already been caught up in ICE sweeps. The Supreme Court’s order to facilitate the return of a wrongly deported man to a prison in El Salvador has apparently not yet been followed up on. So the Mayday message from these New Yorkers was ‘Hands off our Jobs, Healthcare, Rights, and our Democracy.’
Starting at around 5PM, Foley Square and the surrounding streets filled up with people carrying handmade signs, beating on drums, and chanting slogans. Federal Plaza, the block of Lafayette Street between Worth and Duane Streets, was the only open space in the Courthouse vicinity and that’s only because it was blocked off with bike racks by NYPD to allow emergency vehicles to go through. But the activists spilled over onto Worth and as far as the eye could see down Broadway.
A big flatbed truck equipped for sound was parked across from Federal Plaza facing the NY Supreme Court and Thurgood Marshall Federal Court buildings. Among the speakers that mounted it was Congressional Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (NY-14), who just got back to NYC from a multi-city rally tour with Senator Bernie Sanders. She fired up the activists with a rousing speech that highlighted the enormous crowds that came out in the heartland and on the West Coast to fight oligarchy including 20,000 in Salt Lake City, Utah.
AOC
Earlier in the day several hundred activists gathered outside City Hall to demand action on several Labor initiatives before the City Council. Home Health caregivers demanded an end to 24 hour shifts, Public Service retirees demanded the Council pass Bill 1096 to safeguard their Medicare coverage, and tenant/community organizers demanded anend to the human dispalcement caused by Adams’ “City of Yes” development agenda.
CM Christopher Marte, NYC Public Service Retirees’ Michelle Keller.
City Hall Rally flyer.
Jim Walden, Charles Barron, Homecare Activists.
Worth Street, May Day 2025.
