29 August 2004

Previous red-team reports of convention preparations:

http://cryptome.org/rnc-prep-01.htm
http://cryptome.org/rnc-prep-02.htm
http://cryptome.org/rnc-prep-03.htm
http://cryptome.org/rnc-prep-04.htm
http://cryptome.org/rnc05/rnc-prep-05.htm
http://cryptome.org/rnc-prep-06.htm
http://cryptome.org/rnc-prep-07.htm
http://cryptome.org/rnc-prep-08.htm

Cryptome toured the area around Madison Square Garden yesterday about 4-5 PM, took these photos.

Spanking new concrete barriers were installed -- properly, not like the inept at the DNC -- with more being added as traffic was shut down for the convention. Boston used beat-up historic barricades at the DNC, laid Democratically irregularly, not worried too much about any real attack except by the media. NYC has brought in expensive, newly cast white-concrete barriers, free of grafitti and truck-bashing, as befits a rich, white, law and order GOP hoping to gain greater wealth from their valiant war against terrifying-defense-spending-cut-back. In this gated-community security looked pretty good, the rest of the city can kiss ass goodbye.

7th Avenue at West 31st Street.

West 34th Street had a single lane to squeeze and squirt 250,000 protestors today. Man your plastic cuffs.

West 34th Street from 8th Avenue at left to 7th Avenue at right.

Many manholes were marked in blue to show attention to detail -- no explosive devices here -- though only one of them showed tack welding. The others are likely to have been marked to fake having checked beneath them, in the spirit of faking national security by deployment of fiercely expensive wargame systems, boosting profit margins -- hey, this is the homeland huckstering of Wall Street.

Manholes along 7th Avenue. The one at left tack-welded. None of the others.

Bountiful cops and agents and undercovers, hazmat and emergency rescue vehicles, snipers and ninjas.

West 30th Street off 7th Avenue.

G-tagged SUVS outside the Pennsylvania Hotel, where the Secret Service/DHS/FBI command center may be located across 7th Avenue from Madison Square Garden. Keep it quiet. This hotel is where hackers held their convention recently and bugs may have been left behind.

Heavy dump and garbage trucks were ready for sealing holes in defenses, temporary lift-gates installed to allow only the trustworthy limos (those not filled with mere explosives, rather than war predators) into the area .We took photos uninterrupted except for one security station which yelled politely, "no photos, thank you sir."

Barricades and  temporary lift-gate to underground garage at 1 Penn Plaza, West 34ht Street.

West 33rd Street at 9th Avenue, James Farley Post Office at right.

Some young plainclothes with nothing to do spied us adding their faces to our recognition databank, sent a bad eyeball at the geezer terrorist, hey, you never know. A young photographer was busted for doing the same.

Vehicle access point at 8th Avenue and West 34th Street.

Press access gate, 8th Avenue and West 34th Street.

We saw our first-ever bio-sensor inside the LIRR entrance to Penn Station. Perhaps a pix can be sneaked today during the hubbub.

LIRR Entrance to Penn Station and subways, West 34th Street at 7th Avenue. (Clock betrays time of photo.)