The group had obtained a city permit to march that stipulated 250,000 participants - two and a half times the number of those who actually showed up. And the NYPD was girding for a possible 400,000 marchers, with dozens of mounted police units at the ready and police vans standing by for hundreds of arrests.

However, the march came off largely without incident, with the exception of a giant paper mache dragon costume that was torched by suspected anarchists near Madison Square Garden.

Editor's note: