Issue date: 3/21/07 Section: News

Media Credit: Margot Sanchez Protesters dressed in red and gathered in the park to signify 'the human toll of war.'

A steady stream of students gravitated toward the center of Washington Square Park yesterday afternoon. Some went directly there and took up positions in front of the fountain. Others walked more slowly, pausing to watch the crowd grow, talk to other bystanders and look down at the message written in chalk on the asphalt:

"Let's blow this war to peaces."

On the fourth anniversary of the start of the Iraq War, about 150 protesters gathered in front of the park's fountain yesterday afternoon. Many of them left class to call for an end to the war and pose for a large photo in which they held up signs to form the number 658,000 - the amount of casualties to date in the conflict according to the group.

The event, called "Red Tuesday," was sponsored by the NYU Campus Antiwar Network and supported students walking out of their classes to demonstrate for the cause.

Students formed a semicircle around the east side of the fountain and listened to speakers voice their opinions on the war. J. Ward Regan, a history professor in the General Studies Program, stressed the need to consider what kind of future this "criminal war" will bring.

"There is no such thing as victory in war," Regan said. "There is only death and destruction. This is your future. What do you want it to be?"

Students from Beacon High School in Manhattan walked out of their school to the join the protest, and some NYU students skipped class altogether.

"Our generation is really apathetic, and it's important to take a stand," said CAS freshman Anna Zucker, who missed her environmental studies class to join the protest. "We're the future."

Others came because they heard the protest on the loudspeakers or were curious about the crowd in the park.

"I was just going to go home, and then I heard screaming," said Gallatin junior Ben Vhonschneugle.

Students were invited to voice their own opinions over the loudspeakers and were given colorful chalk to draw slogans on the asphalt.

At 12:15 p.m., event photographer and university faculty member Joanne Savio took a picture from the eighth floor of the Kimmel Center of the crowd holding six signs in the fountain that spelled out 6-5-8-0-0-0.

Continued...

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