Hundreds of pro-Palestinian protesters gathered near the Metropolitan Museum of Art on Manhattan’s Upper East Side early Monday evening as A-list stars and celebrities began arriving for the annual Met Gala soiree.
Barricades lined the streets outside the museum at E. 79th St. and Fifth Ave. as a large crowd of protesters streamed out of Central Park and towards the fundraising event. The NYPD earlier said it would have “an adequate security deployment” outside the Met Gala, fashion’s biggest night in New York.
Both protesters and people looking to catch a glimpse of A-listers gathered at the intersection as a wall of police officers lined up in front of them.
One woman, wearing sunglasses and a black scarf covering her face, held a speaker playing Palestinian rap music, which the officers asked her to turn off.
The protests — officially billed as “Day Of Rage For Gaza: From The Encampments To The Streets” — began Monday afternoon around 4 p.m. at Columbia University and New York University, with a planned meet-up at Hunter College at 5 p.m. before marching towards the Met.
Police stopped protesters about a block away from the museum, barricading off the street to ensure no one gets through.
The large group splintered off into four smaller groups as they appeared to search for a way to bypass police.
About a dozen protesters were arrested as they ignored police orders to move to the sidewalk and off of Madison Ave. to allow traffic to flow through.
One group of protesters marched southbound down Fifth Ave. to E. 67th St. where they came across the One Hundred Seventh Infantry Memorial, which honors members of the infantry who died in World War I.
A Daily News reporter witnessed the group burn an American flag and spray paint the words “Gaza” and “free Palestine” across the massive bronze memorial. There were no arrests at the intersection as police did not witness the vandalism.
The group continued down Fifth Ave. to E. 59th St. where they vandalized the General William Tecumseh Sherman Monument in the southeast corner of Central Park.
Protesters hung a Palestinian flag and defaced the statue with spray paint and stickers. Cops surrounded the memorial to keep the group from doing further damage.
Sources said the Met had a larger security contingent than usual — including investigators in plainclothes both outside and inside the Fifth Ave. museum.
The sources also said several protesters with a history of arrests in New York City and elsewhere were expected to be part of the march.
Mayor Adams and police have said “outside agitators” have been involved in the college demonstrations that have roiled campuses across the city the last two weeks.
There has been debate about whether the students were coaxed into tactics they otherwise might have avoided, such as the recent violent takeover of Columbia’s Hamilton Hall, which was broken up by the NYPD last Tuesday night.
