On the first commuting morning of the first full workweek of 2024, New York’s permanent “protesting” class demonstrated its tactical approach for the year: to make us miserable on our daily trips, even as the city struggles to attract pre-2020 commuting and tourism crowds. Under the rubric of “Shut it Down for Palestine,” a few hundred people on Monday managed, indeed, to shut down all three Lower Manhattan bridges to Brooklyn, as well as the Holland Tunnel to New Jersey, just after the morning rush. They created gridlock that inconvenienced tens of thousands of drivers, bus riders, bike riders, and walkers. Following months of smaller-scale actions, it was agitators’ most disruptive action yet—and organizers will continue to escalate their behavior unless Mayor Eric Adams and Governor Kathy Hochul make clear that blocking key transportation corridors is not “peaceful protest.”
