As workers and tourists traversed the cobblestone streets of Lower Manhattan today, December 15, about 20,000 red paper poppies rested in front of the New York Stock Exchange, each flower commemorating the life of a Palestinian person killed by Israeli forces since October 7.
On Dec 15, 30 artists and activists assembled to create an installation on the streets of Lower Manhattan folding pieces of paper, others holding banners that read “stop funding genocide,” and a few distributing flyers to passersby.
About 20,000 red paper poppies rested in front of the New York Stock Exchange, each flower commemorating the life of a Palestinian person killed by Israeli forces since October 7.
A police car was stationed nearby, but the activists moved forward with the action without interruption, leaving the area around noon.
The unaffiliated activist collective started making the poppies around Thanksgiving, when the Palestinian death toll was around 13,000. As the number climbed, the group made additional poppies out of tissue paper, felt, and tablecloth fabric, which they finished by twisting, taping, or tying with string.
The activists intermittently read poems about Palestine by authors including Noor Hindi and Refaat Alareer, who was killed last week in an Israeli airstrike. Ali, 30, and Carla, 28, a married couple from Savannah, Georgia, who preferred to use their first names, stopped to create a few flowers on their way to catch the ferry to the Statue of Liberty. They said they are heavily involved in pro-Palestine organizing in their home city.
