Protesters take their message to Wall Street

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On Thursday, Wall Street was confronted up close and personal with some of the roiling anger at the big banks.

Just as bankers were starting to go home from work at around 6 p.m., thousands of marchers streamed down Broadway, past Wall Street and the bank headquarters, chanting things such as, ‘Put the crooks in jail!,’ and ‘I am not your ATM.’

Bankers in their suits mostly scurried in the opposite direction toward the subway with headphones in, though a few stopped to take pictures and gawk. Police cordons separated the crowds moving in opposite directions.

Before the march began, a group of rowdy protesters stormed into the lobby of JPMorgan Chase & Co’s uptown headquarters before being kicked out. But during the march, no one seemed to notice that they were marching a block away from Goldman Sachs headquarters, which sat silent and guarded by police.

Goldman was not absent from the protest. There were lots of accusatory signs and some protesters had put together a red vampire squid puppet, in reference to the Rolling Stone article that gave that moniker to the firm.

The most colorful moment of the march came as the protesters passed the iconic bull statue near Wall Street. Nearly everyone wanted to stop and have their picture taken, including AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka.

The event was put together by unions and social justice groups, including the NAACP and the AFL-CIO, and organizers estimated that there were 30,000 people in attendance.

-- Nathaniel Popper

Top photo: An onlooker watches the protests near Wall Street. Credit: Getty Images