Pro-Palestinian Protesters Gather Outside Met Gala

NEW YORK (NY Daily News)— Hundreds of pro-Palestinian protesters gathered near the Metropolitan Museum of Art on Manhattan’s Upper East Side Monday evening as celebrities arrived for the annual Met Gala soiree.

Barricades lined the streets outside the museum at East 79th Street and Fifth Avenue as a large crowd of protesters streamed out of Central Park and toward the fundraising event. The NYPD earlier said it would have “an adequate security deployment” outside the Met Gala.

One woman, wearing sunglasses and a black scarf covering her face, held a speaker playing Palestinian music, which the officers asked her to turn off.

The protests — officially billed as “Day Of Rage For Gaza: From The Encampments To The Streets” — began Monday afternoon around 4 p.m. at Columbia University and New York University, with a meet-up at Hunter College at 5 p.m. before marching toward the Met.

Police stopped protesters about a block away from the museum, barricading off the street to ensure no one got through.

The large group splintered off into four smaller groups as they appeared to search for a way to bypass police.

About a dozen protesters were arrested as they ignored police orders to move to the sidewalk and off of Madison Avenue to allow traffic to flow through.

One group of protesters marched southbound down Fifth Avenue to East 67th Street where they came across the One Hundred Seventh Infantry Memorial, which honors members of the infantry who died in World War I.

A Daily News reporter witnessed the group burn an American flag and spray painting the words “Gaza” and “free Palestine” across the massive bronze memorial. There were no arrests at the intersection as police did not witness the vandalism.

The group continued down Fifth Avenue to East 59th Street where they vandalized the General William Tecumseh Sherman Monument in the southeast corner of Central Park.

Protesters hung a Palestinian flag and defaced the statue with spray paint and stickers. Cops surrounded the memorial to keep the group from doing further damage.

Sources said the Met had a larger security contingent than usual — including investigators in plainclothes both outside and inside the Fifth Avenue museum.

The sources also said several protesters with a history of arrests in New York City and elsewhere were expected to be part of the march.

Mayor Eric Adams and police have said “outside agitators” have been involved in the college demonstrations that have roiled campuses across the city the last two weeks.