Massive police presence mounts in Apple's mid-town

Quitting time confrontation is afternoon tactic

Bloomberg, beware
Zuccotti Park is everywhere - marchers chant

New York – As rush hour approaches, protesters and police are beginning to clash with greater frequency.

Occupy Wall Street activists are turning over barricades, police are blocking traffic, and the central conflict is all about who will dominate the streets from mid-town to the financial district.

Bridge and tunnel traffic is slowed and the streets are under a constant onslaught of protesters who appear to be marching for the sole purpose of blocking the daily exodus from the city's massive and deep-cut canyons that lead to the skyscrapers of the Wall Street area.

Live U-Stream coverage from the corner of 14th Street and Fifth Avenue reveals that New York's finest are using motor scooters for cavalry, baton-wielding patrolmen for infantry, and motor vehicles as armored units to drive the protesters to ground that is out of the pattern of commuter traffic.

Constant commands to “Get on the sidewalk” are met with chants of “Whose park? Our park” and “Whose street? Our street.”

Police have arrested hundreds who are blocking such financial institutions as Citibank, Chase and Bank of America.

Several thousand people are mounting a challenge to police authority by marching down Broadway en route to City Hall Park and Foley Square where the Occupy Wall Street and Anonymous communiques have announced there will be a quitting time confrontation.