By MIKE MADDEN and JOHN YAUKEY
Gannett News Service

NEW YORK - Welcome to New York, Mr. President. Chanting and waving signs, tens of thousands of protesters took to the streets on the eve of the Republican National Convention, striking a noisy counterpoint to the four days of GOP-style pageantry that begins Monday morning.

"Why ... Why ... Why the (expletive) are we there," said Roger Harman, who was among the spilling masses who gathered here to protest President Bush and the war in Iraq.

ELECTION 2004

• Election offices await orders • Delegates, protesters converge in N.Y. • Guards' focus is underground • Gay marriage still divides GOP • New York prepared for riot • Terrorism, economy top issues • Young 'maverick' rakes in donations ENQUIRER EDITORIAL • Let's campaign on real issues • Convention blog watch

Demonstrators marched through lower Manhattan, passing directly past Madison Square Garden, where Republicans will gather to nominate Bush for another four years in the White House. Groups of people stopped to shout as they passed the garden's main entrance. A heavy police presence ensured there was little chance the demonstrators would actually encounter any delegates.

This protest - among the dozens planned through Thursday, when the convention ends - most worried local officials because of its size and the occasional vitriol of its organizers

But while the march was loud and lively, there was little direct confrontation between protesters and police, though some arrests were made. Protesters saved most of their energy for harsh condemnations of the Bush administration.

"Bush and the Republican Party made it clear four years ago that voting is not enough of an expression for the will of the people," said Carol Banks, 58, a New Yorker who works at Columbia University. "He puts the interests of the wealthy above the people."

There was no mistaking who the target of the protest was, as chants of "Down with Bush! Down with Bush!" rang down Seventh Avenue. Asked what about the Bush administration most infuriated them, demonstrators ticked off a long list: tax cuts tilted towards the wealthy, natural resources policies that hurt the environment, opposition to gay rights and most of all, the war.

"Bush lies, thousands die," read one sign. Others labeled the president a war criminal and mocked his insistence before invading Iraq that there were weapons of mass destruction hidden there. Passing a billboard for the Fox News Channel, which many liberals believe favors Republicans, some marchers yelled, "Fox News sucks!"

Those were the printable slogans. Plenty of others made their point more raunchily.

Protest organizers sued the city for permission to rally in Central Park after the march, but judges in two courts turned them down. That didn't stop hundreds from flowing uptown to the park's Great Lawn after the march's scheduled end. Demonstrators linked arms and danced on softball fields as police helicopters hovered overhead and officers eyed the crowd for signs of trouble that never materialized.

Sun and warmth probably contributed to an afternoon that produced more thought and shouts than bottle throwing or violence.

Police packed the corners around midtown, keeping the marchers from spilling onto the sidewalks on most blocks. The message they sent was hardly subtle - go ahead and yell, but don't get out of line.

It was heard.

"We're here for ideas - not to piss these guys off," said protester Billy Howard, who came from Philadelphia. "We're at a major crossroads in Iraq ... If these guys screw up, we're looking at a lot of dead Americans. I think we have enough already."

In July, 43 U.S. troops were killed in Iraq, up from 37 in June. The total killed in Iraq since the war began March 19, 2003, is fast approaching 1,000. The cost of the war, meanwhile, is expected to exceed $200 billion early next year when the current war supplemental funding runs dry.

New York may seem a strange place for Bush to sell his presidency on the theme that he has the grit and resolve to fight terror. Democrats outnumber Republicans, 5-1. Calvin Coolidge was the last Republican to win this city's heart in the voting booth.

But many protesters said the choice of the convention's location was one of the few things the Republicans have done that didn't bother them too much.

"It gives me a opportunity to let them know what I think," said 72-year-old Irene Goodwin, a retiree from Brookeville, N.Y., who said her Long Island neighbors are all Republicans who thought she was crazy for marching in the hot sun all day.

From across the river in New Jersey, the sentiment was the same.

"Bush wins again - I'm Canadian," said Terry Holder, who lives in northern New Jersey. "This guy is ruining this country."