''I just wish I was able to get out there and follow them.'' ''There are no freaks here, just nice, sensible, intelligent people,'' said 81-year-old Warren Stewart of Manhattan.
They gawked, clapped and peddled everything from orange juice to toy antennas in a scene reminiscent of Thanksgiving and St. ''God Is Gay,'' read the sign carried by a man in purple coveralls, ''and I Am the Messiah.'' Jeffrey Natter, an actor, donned a hat that declared, ''An Army of Lovers Can Not Fail.''Īs the marchers - estimated at 100,000 by organizers and 40,000 by the police - entered Central Park at 79th Street for a late afternoon rally on the Great Lawn, a woman shouted from a nearby curb, ''I'm for families, not gays.'' Judith Fein, a bicyclist whose path was blocked by the march, lamented, ''I've got a softball game on Governors Island, and I have to catch a ferry.''īut most onlookers along the parade route - from Sheridan Square, across Greenwich Village on West Fourth Street and up Fifth Avenue and into the park - savored the parade as a parade.
The mood in Manhattan was at once jocular and resolute.
