Views from the Barricades
By Eli Baum, Maya Lerman, Rocky RÅ«b, Lucy Mason, Natalie Buttner, Duda Rotta, Praharsha Gurram, Chris Brown, and Ava Lozner
Illustrations by Em Bennett, Isabelle Oh, Iris Pope, Jorja Garcia
On May 7, a group of students disrupted the main study room of Butler Library in protest of the war in Gaza. Many were arrested. But what followed was confusion—unlike the first encampment, the police response to the Butler disruption took place in an enclosed space with few witnesses. The Columbia administration said one thing, the media outlets said another, and every person in every place had their own account. And so the whole day was reduced to the bare facts: “About 80 Pro-Palestinian Activists Arrested in Columbia Library Takeover.”
But it is not enough to simply say what happened. As students, we have a stake in the story and an experience that goes beyond the headline. This article is a collaborative effort to capture the events of May 7 from different vantage points. Scenes are arranged in rough chronological order. All writers describe what they personally witnessed, unless otherwise stated. All writers represent their own experience of events. None of us claims to have a comprehensive account. But here is what we saw. – Eli Baum
Illustration by Isabelle Oh
In Front of the Reading Room - Maya Lerman
Shouts erupt from the main Butler reading room. I arrive in time to see swarms of protesters pushing through the doorway as Public Safety officers haphazardly attempt to block the entrance. The unintelligible din becomes organized to the rhythmic beat of a drum, accompanying a clear voice chanting into a megaphone from inside: “Free, Free Palestine! Free Free Free Palestine!”
The officers start grabbing at protesters attempting to rush in. I’m dodging flailing arms and jostled bodies when I hear a thud from behind me and turn around in horror: Three protesters have been pushed to the ground, and the sound I heard was a girl’s head slamming against the tiled floor.
Waves of anger, fear, and shock sweep the crowd—we’ve never seen Public Safety act this way. As people tend to the protesters on the ground, one demonstrator in a baseball cap and a keffiyeh tied as a mask tries to negotiate with a man in a suit.
“If I’m a student here, do I have access to this library?” the protester repeats.
“Stop. Please stop,” the man says. “You’re scaring people.”
“You’re scaring people! You’re scaring people!” the crowd shouts at him in overlapping voices, pointing to the spot on the ground where three students were pushed. Seeing an opening, the protester rushes into the doorway. The man in the suit grabs their backpack, but gives up easily. The protester is lost in a sea of keffiyehs.
Illustration by Em Bennett
Main Reading Room - Rocky RÅ«b
Protesters disseminate stickers, flyers, banners, and pamphlets. Some students are still typing away at their computers. One has an essay outline on his computer screen but then opens “The New York War Crimes” newspaper like he’s digesting the morning news with his coffee. Small groups of student onlookers get up and leave while others shuffle to see what’s happening.
Around 25 minutes into the demonstration, a leader lowers the megaphone, steps down from the table-podium, and announces that it’s time to leave. Those shuffling students still in the room head back to their desks and reopen their computers, and protestors collect the excess handouts for later use. But as the group of protesters moves toward each of the three exits, the remaining open doors close one by one. Public Safety officers steady themselves in front of them. Arms cross, chests puff up.
A bald man in a dark grey suit steps through the main doors of the library behind a wall of security personnel standing shoulder to shoulder. He raises a megaphone and echoes words he will repeat throughout the day, “[To leave the room] you must show your ID. If you do not leave, you are trespassing, you will be subject to arrest.” Confusion propagates amongst the demonstrators. He says it again and I see a student activist lower their head and bring a hand above their eyes. I realize, right then, that they are trapped.
Butler Lobby - Maya Lerman
I am pushed, along with a mass of people, into the Butler lobby. Public Safety tells us to evacuate. I persistently ask if we are required to leave—they themselves don’t know the protocol for this—but eventually they concede that we can choose to stay.
There are three groups remaining in the lobby: A small contingent of Columbia Spectator reporters gather on the west, a group of bystanders sympathetic to the protesters in the middle, and a cluster of pro-Israel students toward the east, typing on laptops and expressing their gratitude to Public Safety. One of them asks a Public Safety worker if she’s ok, if she was harmed, and whether she felt intimidated. He thanks another for his service, and the officer in turn thanks the student for his service.
As the chanting from upstairs goes quiet, I picture the scene above me: With everyone evacuated, the demonstrators and Public Safety are left in what I imagine to be a semi-private standoff.
Then the screaming starts. It’s distinctly different from the chanting—the rhythm has fallen away to a sound that pierces my conscience. Though I am a floor removed, I recognize the echoes as cries for help. Those around me begin pleading with Public Safety, asking if people are hurt. A woman announces that there are reports from inside of concussions. She begs for a medic. The officers ignore her. A faculty member wearing a “Hands Off Our Students” pin politely asks if there’s a medical emergency. She too is ignored. The screaming continues.
The temperature in the lobby—literal and metaphorical—is increasing by the minute. Stoic officers shrug as bystanders argue, bargain, and beg with escalating severity. Eventually, the bystanders admit defeat as their appeals are met with hollow silence. As they sit back down in surrender, an officer tells us, almost under her breath: “I’m a nice person, I promise. I’m a mom.” It’s a while longer before the screaming finally dwindles.
Main Reading Room - Rocky RÅ«b
Students stand with their arms linked, parallel to the line of Public Safety officers guarding the front door to the main reading room. The chant “LET US OUT,” has begun and the words echo from one end of the reading room to the other. Public Safety is simultaneously holding off an unmasked individual attempting to enter the room, and shoving the masked students who are trying to leave back in. The bald man in the dark grey suit reenters with his megaphone. “Leave the building, don’t do it like that—”
“LET US GO. LET US GO … ” recommences amongst the crowd.
“You’re making a mistake!” he shouts back. The chants continue, and he replies, “Please stop, please. Does anybody want to leave—exit this way.”
The Public Safety officers argue with demonstrators one-on-one in the front line of the stand-off. One holds up his hand and makes taunting “talk” motions in the face of a student. Another officer starts laughing and then stares down another student with a grin. An officer standing just behind the stare-down yells, “You have to leave one by one with your IDs out! That’s how it goes!”
Finally, the line snaps. The officer who was grinning at the protesters lunges toward an individual, shouting back to a student in an inaudible screaming match. The two walls of officers and of demonstrators collapse inward on the altercation.
It is hard to describe this violence. It’s an entanglement between the parallel lines of officers and students, pulsating without pattern before the tension finally breaks. A Public Safety officer reaches over the wall of other officers formed at the door and swipes his arm at the head of a protester. He makes contact with their head and tries to pull off his head covering, but can’t grip onto it. He steps back and then jumps forward again, this time gripping hard and latching onto the latex fabric above the student’s scalp. He pulls his arm down hard, taking the student toward the floor. Another officer joins him and grabs the falling activist's body, aiding in the push. Right next to them, an Allied Security officer tugs on the loose end of another student’s keffiyeh, pulling it around their neck, and they fall too.
As they press against each other, there is a sense of power you can feel swelling over the uniformed guards. It’s as if the first moment of physical contact gives the fleet permission to charge. They keep on going until they notice a student who can’t get off the ground, and a sea of demonstrators swarms two of their peers’ bodies. The student is pulled from the scuffle. Moments later, the clash between officers and demonstrators begins again.
I’ve heard many of my peers worry that, after a year of witnessing police on our campus, they’ve become numb to the violence. But standing right there, it’s impossible to feel nothing at all.
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Illustration by Em Bennett
Outside Butler - Lucy Mason
A small protest begins outside the library. Four people wearing keffiyehs and medical masks start to chant. Most of the crowd are students who have just exited Butler, with more still leaving through the front doors. Over the next twenty minutes, the protest grows.
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Eventually, Public Safety officers come out of the library to grab barricades from the South Lawn. The protesters push back screaming “shame” in their faces. They surround them, chanting, “The students united will never be defeated!” The officers exchange a glance and retreat, carrying the barricades back to the lawns. Cheers erupt from the crowd.
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Did moving the barricades matter? I don’t know. But, for a moment, I sense an infectious, triumphant feeling spreading throughout the crowd—they might just be able to have a tangible impact.
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Next to me, a woman whispers fervently to fellow protesters saying to “spread it around.” After a few moments, she leaves and heads to the back. The front of the crowd is now almost entirely members of the press.
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Someone yells out from the back of the group, “Everyone! We’re flooding now!”
The crowd responds, “We’re flooding now!”
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The protesters surge forward. I move to the side, trying not to get caught in the center. Other journalists at the front stand with their hands up, attempting to remove themselves. A Public Safety officer at the door motions back into the library for reinforcements.
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I wonder to myself what the plan is. What happens when they get inside? No one knows what’s going on in the main reading room, but it seems that students are not allowed to leave. Are these protesters not walking into the exact same situation?
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The officers attempt to hold their ground as the crowd overpowers them. They retreat to the second door as protesters and press fill the airlock.
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For a second, it feels like something might happen. But the standoff resumes a moment later, albeit one door further inside. After a few minutes, Public Safety re-enters the library and secures the door with handcuffs.
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Illustration by Em Bennett
The Butler Airlock - Natalie Buttner
The airlock is packed. The innermost of the two sets of front doors to Butler have been handcuffed closed by Public Safety. One man with a keffiyeh draped around his shoulders stands closest to the glass, placing his fingers between the doors to stop Public Safety from shutting them completely. “We have a faculty mediator ready to communicate. We need to de-escalate please.”
Behind us we can hear the chanting of the students outside the library. Ahead of us we catch glimpses of Public Safety, journalists, and bystanders flitting around the lobby—it’s difficult to discern what is going on inside. The man trying to facilitate mediation continues, “You are wearing a suit, it looks like you are in charge, can you please come speak with us?”
A person in a mask bursts into the space, shuttling in and out to communicate with those outside, “Move, press, move out of the fucking way oh my god! Why is the whole room press?”
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I look around and see that a significant fraction of the airlock is touting press badges and cameras.
One reporter replies, “Because this is news.” Unfortunately for us, the airlock will remain an information desert.
In addition to the faculty ushered into the airlock by protestors, miscellaneous faculty are amassing at the door offering their own mediation services. A medical doctor is also brought to the front of the crowd and offered to be let in to provide medical care. These offers are ignored.
An older photographer with a cool professionalism finally calls it, announcing to everyone his plans to file out and vape. Slowly, it occurs to everyone that if the protesters are coming out, it won’t be from here. After a little over an hour packed inside, the front airlock of Butler decompresses. The student protesters are advised by a loud announcement from an organizer to distribute themselves on either side of 114th street.
114th Street - Eli Baum and Praharsha Gurram
Students, press, and a few police officers are crowding around the back door of Butler. This is where the police will enter. It’s also where any arrested protesters will come out.
Barricades go up quickly: first on the Broadway and Amsterdam sides of the street, then around a small square patch of the street (this fails; everybody leaves except two girls who sit down and do homework). Nevertheless, more and more barricades arrive over the course of the afternoon. If this keeps up the street will end up like church pews.
The back door itself is a black box. Police officers, fire fighters, and other unidentified officials enter. Students and protesters exit—it’s a mix of bystanders caught in the library and protesters who have presumably identified themselves to Public Safety. Stretchers slowly roll out over the course of the day. Some have keffiyehs over their heads. One of them held a public safety officer, according to an email Claire Shipman sent out later that day.
“Use your words,” a police officer says to two cameramen fighting over a shot of the Butler back door. Another cameraman yells at a security official for blocking his shot.
Illustration by Iris Pope
Butler Lobby - Maya Lerman
Students and faculty continue to call for mediation. A Public Safety representative tells us that only “library staff” are allowed entry. Despite having made it through the front door, the professor with the “Hands Off …” pin is not permitted past the top of the stairs. Together, she and I crane our necks to try to catch a glimpse of the protesters inside, to no avail.
I head back down to the lobby when I am stupefied by a familiar face. I watch as Gil Zussman, member of Columbia’s Antisemitism Task Force, is escorted through the doors and into the west wing of the building, while other faculty continue to clamor from outside. I immediately recognize Zussman as a key player in a Whatsapp chat of Columbia faculty, alumni, and students exposed for working to identify pro-Palestine students for doxxing and deportation—and definitely not a library staffer. (Zussman has faced no consequences from the University for actively trying to target international students.)
With Zussman in the building, Columbia’s insistence on identifying protesters over defusing the situation takes on a new, pernicious meaning. It’s emblematic of why protesters don’t show their faces or swipe ID: The consequences for protesting go beyond just University discipline, as the threat of visa cancellation and long-term detention continues to loom dangerously close to home.
Zussman turns the corner, out of sight. As far as I know, there are no public reports of what he did next.
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Illustration by Em Bennett
114th Street - Eli Baum and Praharsha Gurram
Milling about on 114th street was Kaz Daughtry, the Deputy Mayor of Public Safety for New York City, who oversees the Fire Department, Department of Correction, New York City Emergency Management, the Department of Probation, and the Mayor’s Office of Criminal Justice. A former police officer, Daughtry racked up 54 allegations of police misconduct during his career, four of which the Civilian Complaint Review Board declared were substantiated (a further three were dropped in 2023 after he was promoted an unprecedented six ranks to assistant commissioner of the NYPD). When he saw us standing nearby with student press passes, he called us over for an interview, and ribbed that we should put a picture of his head on the cover of The Blue and White.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
The Blue and White: Have you guys been in active correspondence with the University in deciding how to handle this?
Kaz Daughtry: That's right. Our legal team is talking with the University now.
B&W: So what kinds of things have you guys—
KD: That’s under investigation.
B&W: You're the deputy mayor of Public Safety. Do you feel like this poses a Public Safety risk?
KD: I don't know, what do you think?
B&W: No.
KD: Tell me why you think that.
B&W: I mean, they’re just sitting in there.
KD: Sitting in there? So, if the university doesn't want them on the property, what would you like us to do? That's something you've got to take up with the University, right?
B&W: Yeah, I agree.
KD: The university is saying, ‘Hey listen, NYPD, I would like you to help us remove some of the students here.’ Obviously, the police department is a law enforcement agency. And I know they have peace officers on the campus that have peace officer powers as well. And if our peace officers are asking for assistance as well as with the university, the NYPD is going to assist them.
B&W: There’s been reports of a mediation process happening in there with faculty and students. Do you guys have any coordination between the law enforcement response and that effort?
KD: We’re not going to mediate. That's the school’s responsibility.
B&W: So you see your responsibility as sort of doing what the school asks of you?
KD: You guys are on the way. You're going to be the next David Muir [a prominent ABC News Correspondent] … Am I your first interview?
B&W: No.
KD: Well, it sure looks like it.
With that, Deputy Mayor Daughtry introduced us to Linda Schmidt, an Emmy-winning television reporter who happened to be standing next to him, and asked her to give us words of wisdom. (One of us had seen her earlier when she walked up to a security guard, asked if Carman Hall was Butler, had Butler pointed out to her, took out her phone, began to record, and said “This is Butler, it is now closed! People are studying for finals!”) After pleasantries, the Deputy Mayor directed his colleague to give us his business card (which was made of metal) and repeated his request for his face to be on the cover of the Blue and White. He also asked us what we thought of his hat, which he told us he had bought for $187.
Illustration by Em Bennett
Butler Lobby - Maya Lerman
I’m coming down from one of my routine checks of the top of the stairs when I see a new administrator speaking to a small group of students at the foot of the stairs. She turns her head, and my eyes practically pop out of my skull. It’s our newly-minted acting president, Claire Shipman.
My hands turn to jelly as I fumble with my phone to start recording and, cursing my luck, realize I’m out of storage. Shoving my phone back in my pocket I tune in, catching the tail end of the conversation. Between my memory and what two of the students who spoke to her anonymously recounted to me, the brief interaction went something like this:
A first student repeats the demand for a faculty mediator, and asks if there is an update on the mediation process. Shipman, seemingly distracted, asks if “these people are being held hostage.” (It is unclear whether “these people” meant everyone in the lobby or if she was referring to the group of pro-Israel students in the opposite corner. Also unclear is whether the “hostage”-takers in question are the protesters upstairs, and if so, how they could possibly be holding hostages in the lobby while trapped in the reading room.)
The student responds no, then reiterates her question. Shipman asks, “So you’re not trying to leave?” Two students explain that they are staying because they are worried for the safety of their peers. They ask one final time: “Will there be faculty mediation?” Finally, Shipman responds: “No. They [the protesters] need to leave.”
Another student who has joined the conversation tells her that the protesters are trying to leave, and that Public Safety won’t let them out without showing ID. Shipman repeats to her, “Yes, they won’t be let out without showing ID.” She then turns away and leaves up the stairs as suddenly as she came.
114th Street - Eli Baum
At one point a bald black man in a suit comes out to talk to police officers. After a few minutes, a couple protesters inside the Carman gates start chanting “Kill Mayor Adams! Kill Mayor Adams!” (The bald black man talking to the police officers is not Mayor Adams.) Seemingly without realizing what’s going on, more protesters join in to the “Kill Mayor Adams” chant. I look at the other Blue and White reporters in disbelief—they don’t know what to make of this either.
Illustration by Isabelle Oh
Butler East Door - Duda Rotta
“Look, I’m wearing scrubs, I’m not a protester!” says a young woman, desperately. “You can escort me if you need, get it for me, I don't care. I just need my keys: I have a shift at the hospital.”
The officer standing next to the handcuffed doors of Butler East gate continues staring straight ahead.
“Sir, please, can you look at me? I’m a doctor. I need to get to the hospital. This is important.”
A group of University Delegates arrive, pass by the pleading doctor, and go inside. A student asks the Public Safety officer who that group is. “Peace keepers.”
Illustration by Em Bennett
Butler Lobby - Maya Lerman
I hear a commotion at the top of the stairs. A student bearing a camera and a red keffiyeh is being led away from the second floor. Two large Public Safety officers have their hands on him, with five more beginning to surround him. People in the background shout “Hands off of him!”
Almost instantly, the officers in front of me seem to double. Now, there are three men growing increasingly rough with the student, who is trying to shake them off and leave. They grab his arm and corner him against the wall. The student repeats “I just wanna make sure they’re alright,” pointing in the direction of the protesters upstairs. He pulls his hand out of the grip of one of the officers and tries to make his way down the stairs. The rest of the officers move in unison.
Now, all three officers have fully grabbed the student by the shoulders and arms and are dragging him. As they pull him faster, I find myself almost running down the staircase, taking them two stairs at a time backwards and fighting to maintain my precarious balance. Onlookers let out cries of “Stop!” and “Let go of him!” As the officers whip the student toward me, I feel a wave of adrenaline; a couple inches closer and they might have taken me down, too.
Now at the bottom of the stairs, they let go for a moment. “Stop throwing me, what’s wrong with you guys?” the student asks, as he attempts to walk away from the scene. For a moment I think the clash is over; that they merely wanted to move him away from the site of the protest. But four officers surround him once more. He tries to escape from the front entrance, but an officer seizes both his arms and roughly pulls them behind his back.
Shouts of “You’re hurting him!” “You’re brutalizing him!” and “Oh my god!” echo through the chamber. A wall of Public Safety is swiftly erected between the onlookers and the student now being dragged down the hallway. Sticking my camera between the bodies in front of me, I spot six officers surrounding him. They pull him to the ground.
Then, he starts to scream.
The whole scene feels like something I’m not supposed to see. The wall of Public Safety in front of me is reinforced by a second circle of officers surrounding the man on the ground, blocking him entirely from view. But it takes no stretch of the imagination to put two and two together—the sound of a person in pain is unmistakable. The onlookers shout: “Leave him alone!” “Oh my god!” “He’s literally yelling for help!” A woman pulls out a medical license. “I’m an EMT,” she starts to say, then interrupts herself, screaming “Do not touch me!” I look pleadingly at the faces of the men and women before my eyes. They will not meet my gaze.
It’s this terrible contradiction: Public Safety seems at once to make every effort to shield the scene from witnesses, yet at the same time appears unbothered by the crowd of onlookers blatantly watching, crying, and filming, knowing full well that they have complete and utter immunity. I feel as though I have been privy to a cruel secret. Who would I report this to? Public Safety? The police? My every human instinct screams at me to move, to find help, to push past the bodies blocking me from a man in need of aid. A man being violently arrested for doing exactly what I was: asking for a better look.
I feel a horrible sinking feeling in my stomach as the screaming persists. I have never felt so physically small.
After minutes of on and off screaming, the student goes silent. He is dragged past the corner and out of view. As I turn to disperse, a woman asks if I’m ok; only then am I made aware of the shock on my face and tears welling in my eyes. Someone asks shakily for water, then she too begins to cry. Two other women hold each other, sobbing into one another’s arms. The officers don’t seem to know what to do with us. Soon after, they finally decide to remove the bystanders from the lobby, tentatively agreeing that press can stay. One woman blasts “Fuck tha Police” from her phone as she is escorted away.
In the hours that followed, Claire Shipman would thank Public Safety for their “professionalism.”
Butler Lobby - Maya Lerman
It’s just me and one other journalist left in the lobby. It’s quiet. I go to the east corner to charge my phone, when I’m surprised by a Public Safety officer speaking to me. The approximate conversation went something like this:
“Hot chocolate,” he says. I jump, then stare up at him, confused.
“What?”
“Hot chocolate,” he repeats. He points to a cup of hot chocolate and a pastry on the corner of a desk beside me. “It’s really good.” I gape at him.
“Are you offering me some?” He makes a disgusted face at me.
“Well no … I don’t like to share cups.” I think I blush with embarrassment.
“Oh … well it seemed like you were offering. Why were you telling me about your hot chocolate then?”
“Because you asked what I was doing?” There’s an uncomfortable tension behind our voices. The violence from less than an hour prior still lingers in the air.
“Um, no … I don’t think I did,” I respond with an awkward, defusing chuckle. He makes a face and walks away. The hot chocolate is left on the counter.
Claire Shipman’s iPhone - Eli Baum
In one of the most bizarre moments of the day, Claire Shipman ended up calling a student, Sam Rosen, BC ’25, who was unaffiliated with the protests, as the NYPD was entering the building. The two of them were connected by Classics Professor Joseph Howley, who thought that the acting president might benefit from the perspective of a student who was in touch with those inside the library. This interview excerpt has been edited and condensed for clarity.
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Sam Rosen: I asked her if it was possible to not have the NYPD intervene. She said something along the lines of “I mean, they took over a library, like, the main library in our main reading room during reading week. There’s nothing that could have been done.” And I asked her if she could negotiate with anyone who was a part of the protest. And she was like, “There’s no negotiating with this.”
The Blue and White: What surprised you?
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SR: How scared she seemed. She had been in the building for a few hours at this point. And you would think that by the time she called in the NYPD, she would feel confident in her decision. I mean, if you didn’t hear her tone, what she said to me made it seem as if she had to call in the police. I feel like if you have to do something, you generally aren’t scared … It’s been the weirdest part of this—that she called me and that she sounded scared. And then a few hours later, she records the most polished video, the most formal version of the things that she said to me and released it for the world to see.
B&W: What do you think she was scared of?
SR: I don’t know. She has previously expressed that it was the wrong decision to call the NYPD onto campus last spring. I don’t know what scares her. It’s in Columbia's financial interests to call in the cops. It’s in Columbia's political interests to call in the cops. Maybe it wasn’t fear. Maybe it was stress. But I think stress has less motivational power than fear. Stress alone doesn’t explain why she would have called me.
B&W: Do you think there’s any chance she empathized?
SR: I don't know.
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Illustration by Jorja Garcia
114th Street - Chris Brown
All along 114th Street, people sit on the stoops of frat and sorority houses and wait: Everyone knows arrests are coming, no one knows when. I’m running back and forth from barricade to barricade. On Broadway and 114th, people are pushed away from the circle of police guarding the barriers. Masked protesters and detectives in suits push against the barricades, battling for control over the edge of the block. On the Amsterdam side of 114th, the first NYPD police bus is let in, followed by more of the same lining up behind it. The first detained students are walked out with zip-tied hands, frisked, and loaded onto the bus. Someone nearby starts to sing “Bella ciao.”
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Illustration by Em Bennett
114th Street - Eli Baum
A police officer brings each protester to the front of the line, shakes off their keffiyehs, and, for just a moment, takes off their masks before loading them into the vehicle. For a split second, you can see their faces.
One looks in the police officer’s eyes and smiles as though he just said the funniest thing in the world. Another one pointedly looks away. One looks snarky, one looks blank, one is nodding and looking down. Purple-sweatshirt has clearly been through this before; she does the moves without being asked. A person with a keffiyeh over a baseball cap is exaggeratingly puffing out his chest.
I later learned, from exchanges with three people familiar with the matter, that many of those involved had not been disciplined before—the entire disruption had been intended as a relatively safe action, meant to show that protest can take place even amidst a repressive atmosphere. Why people predicted it would be low risk I do not know. But looking back, all those faces—utter terror, strange calm, brazen hatred for the police—all of them fall into place.
There’s a protester who’s looking down and tapping her foot as she waits her turn. I watch her for a while. She’s tapping it to a particular rhythm that I can’t follow. I’m not sure why that’s the thing I remember so vividly. Here she is, about to be arrested. There’s a good chance she’ll get expelled. But right in the middle of everything, she seems almost bored.
Because in a strange way, 114th street is relatively peaceful. Chaos ensues on the two ends of the street, but here, as the protesters are slowly entering the police vehicles, everything is quiet. Two girls on the sidewalk do a little dance for a friend in the police bus before turning away so she won’t see them cry. A sorority girl walks by with hot pink nails and a “Feeling Swell” sweatshirt (it’s so bizarre that this whole scene is taking place on frat row). The sun slowly goes down as the last of the protesters are packed into the buses and vans, and by that point, the only real lighting in the street are the red and blue flashes of the police cars. If you look into the driver’s seats, you can see the officers leaning their heads back or pressing their faces into their hands. They would do anything—absolutely anything—for the crowd to disperse and the day to be over.
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Illustration by Em Bennett
Broadway + 114th - Lucy Mason
Police and protesters have been at a standstill for hours. Along the frontline of officers, protesters chant, “NYPD, KKK, IOF, you’re all the same!”
At the barricade, a protester wearing a rainbow keffiyeh leans in and shouts into an officer’s ear. The officer takes his hand off the barricade and punches the protester in the face.
Someone standing next to me screams, “Yo. What the fuck! Hands off our students!”
Rainbow-keffiyeh tries to move toward the officer and take a swing, but another protester holds them back. The officer pushes past the other police and rushes into the crowd. A group of police follow. Some try intercepting the officer, others seize the moment to spread the crowd apart.
Chaos ensues. I’m pushed in every direction, caught in the middle of panic and confusion. People hold their friends as they fall backward. Others chase after the group of police at the center of Broadway. By the time I reach them, Rainbow-keffiyeh is pinned face to the ground, surrounded by police officers.
Batons are out. People hold their hands up as officers shove them into the crowd. They stumble back and the police advance, pushing them backward again.
The scene is visceral. Disturbing. For the first time, I’m afraid for my safety. I’ve lost sight of everyone I know. The police don’t care if you are press, a protester, or someone passing through. You are a body.
I see people running past, heading for a police bus parked on Broadway. I follow them. Turning the corner, people huddle by its window trying to communicate with someone inside. The bus’s lights click off. In response, the protesters use their phones as flashlights. Holding them up to the glass, we all can see into the bus. It’s almost empty—the only ones inside are two police officers talking to Rainbow-keffiyeh.
Illustration by Em Bennett
Broadway + 114th - Lucy Mason
The police bus carrying the protesters pulls out and turns south on Broadway. After a prolonged standoff—protesters blocking the bus, police holding their lines—an uncoordinated officer throwing a punch was what finally broke the gridlock. With 114th street no longer blocked off, protesters flood down the empty street, chanting. A march begins.
112th Street - Natalie Buttner
The crowd marches downtown on Amsterdam, then turns down 112th street. A yellow taxi is idling. Two protesters run out in front, stop on either side of the front of the taxi, and gesture with their hands, ‘Keep moving!’ The taxi lurches once and then speeds away towards Broadway just before the street is consumed by banners and chanting.
Illustration by Em Bennett
Broadway + 114th - Ava Lozner
As the crowd marches up Broadway and approaches 114th street, the police officers stationed there are hastily organizing some sort of blockade. An officer in a white shirt walks into the middle of the intersection as the mass approaches, baton and riot helmet readied in his hand. “Andy! Andy!” He calls above the noise to someone near the southeast corner of the intersection. “Yo, get some cops, let’s form a line. Yo, let’s just start taking bodies.”He puts on a riot helmet, takes a few steps towards the marchers, and begins doling out orders to protesters and other police officers in the area.
Broadway Gates - Ava Lozner
The march is steadily approaching the main Broadway gates. A few people are hurriedly swiped onto campus just before Public Safety locks them. A group of disgruntled people are trapped inside, having arrived at the gates a moment too late. They plead their case to no avail.
I ask a tall man in a suit with a Columbia ID if it’s true that they are no longer granting entry onto campus. They are not.
When will they reopen the gates? He shrugs. He is unsure at the moment.
How will the guards respond if protesters attempt to gain access to campus through the gate? He shrugs. He is unsure at the moment.
Finished with our conversation, he reaches into a plastic container of nuts and tosses one into his mouth. I leave him to it.
Illustration by Em Bennett
Broadway - Natalie Buttner
I look behind me and see another enormous crowd approaching. It feels like a scene from a medieval battle, unknown reinforcements cresting a hill. I stop, confused, for a long moment, then brace myself.
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The crowd is here: rollerskaters, with festive music playing from speakers, strapped with headlamps and GoPros. The NYPD tries to funnel them, but they eventually give up. It takes a few tries for me to get the attention of anyone on skates, a few more to get the attention of someone who will speak to me in English. Finally, someone blares at me:
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“Wednesday Night Skate NYC! On Facebook and Instagram!”
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I am running down the center of Broadway, trying to catch up with the protest that is now far ahead. Skaters rush past on either side of me, bright lights whirring on dark asphalt. One of the skaters spins around to face the police, filming them as they walk down the street behind us.
For the Wednesday Night Skate NYC, the protests at Columbia will just be one scene in a montage of darkened New York City flashing by.
Illustration by Isabelle Oh
Twitter - Maya Lerman
About two hours after the protesters were cleared from the building, Secretary of State Marco Rubio tweeted: “We are reviewing the visa status of the trespassers and vandals who took over Columbia University’s library. Pro-Hamas thugs are no longer welcome in our great nation.”
The Email - Duda Rotta
“Moreover, I am deeply disturbed at the idea that, at a moment when our international community feels particularly vulnerable, a small group of students would choose to make our institution a target.”​
—Claire Shipman, who had nothing to say about our ‘particular vulnerabilities’ when Mahmoud Khalil and Mohsen Mahdawi pleaded for help from the University, and then were kidnapped and detained by ICE.
Illustration by Jorja Garcia
114th Street - Praharsha Gurram
Evidence of the day remains, though you have to look for it: Broken zip ties are strewn along the sidewalk, trash from previously overturned garbage bins clumps up in places, and SDS and pro-Palestine stickers are up on the outside face of Butler. The only extraordinary thing left is the media: News anchors and their camera teams are set up, ready to record.
I recognize some faces–many were present throughout the day, milling about. One is reviewing notes, others seem to be practicing before going on air. Their clothes are crisp, and careful management by the camera guys ensures their lighting is good. It’s a surreal sight: In the eerie, smoldering, and empty wreckage of the day, media professionals are getting ready to explain what has happened to the rest of the world.
The narratives are crisp and concise. Pro-Palestinian protesters stormed Butler library during finals week, and the police were called to take them out. Seventy-eight protesters were arrested, and the university is suspicious that many of them weren’t students. Nothing said is false, but it doesn’t feel right either. I keep thinking about all the details I want to include: the students I saw come out on stretchers, the cheers that would ripple out every time a batch of arrested protesters were led out of Butler by the NYPD, my friend who was frantically trying to get people from sitting on her car parked on 114th, the sorority sisters perched on their house stoops watching the day unfold. I know why none of this can make it into their accounts–the real world only has five minutes to spare, so most of the day becomes irrelevant. Still, it stings.
Gaza - Maya Lerman
What is lost in the discussions of protest, police brutality, and campus conflict, is the question of what any of this is actually about. On May 7, as Columbia was engrossed in turmoil, an Israeli airstrike on a Thai Restaurant in Gaza City killed 34 people, as reported by the New York Times. Among them was Yahya Sobeih, a local journalist who had become a father two hours earlier, as well as Nahid Qanoua, a 16-year-old boy who had celebrated his birthday the day before. The Al-Karama school, which had been repurposed as a shelter for displaced Palestinians, was also bombed, according to Reuters. Fifteen people were killed, including Nour Al-Din Abdo, a 24-year-old journalist known as a mentor to young photographers. As of now, the A.P. puts the total confirmed death toll from Israeli bombardment at 92.