Trump Tower Protest: Watch Thousands Of Angry New Yorkers Greet The President

MIDTOWN MANHATTAN, NY — Chants of "New York hates you!" and "You have blood on your hands!" echoed through Midtown on Monday night as thousands of protesters stormed Trump Tower, awaiting President Donald Trump on his first trip home to his gilded Fifth Avenue penthouse since he took office in January.

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On Facebook, more than 6,000 people had said they planned to protest outside Trump Tower on Monday night. Another 20,000-plus listed themselves as "interested."

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Activists began showing up around 4:30 p.m. to the base of the tower, located at 725 Fifth Ave. between 56th and 57th streets. But over the next few hours, hundreds of NYPD officers — tasked with protecting the president's residence — would herd the growing crowd of thousands away from the tower itself and into barricaded protest zones.

And the NYPD kept pushing these zones farther from Trump Tower as the president's arrival drew nearer.

Watch video from the protest, recorded live at the scene Monday night, below.

Trump landed at JFK Airport around 8:15 p.m. Monday. After that, he took a helicopter to the Wall Street Landing Zone, then a car to Trump Tower. He arrived discretely around 9:15 p.m., according to the Associated Press — undetected by the majority of the crowd.

The White House pool report said:

After a 15-minute drive through the empty streets of Manhattan, under heavy police presence, the motorcade arrived at the Trump Tower.

No protesters could be seen from the motorcade along the way (a lot of them were gathered on 5th Avenue which the pool crossed walking after leaving the motorcade).

Most protesters had begun heading home by around 9:30 p.m., and a few streets were reopened in the area.

A law-enforcement source told Patch the president's car likely entered the fenced-off no-protester zone around 55th Street and Madison Avenue.

The president will be sleeping in his Midtown apartment on both Monday and Tuesday nights, according to the White House.

New Yorkers went all out on their welcome-home signage for the president:

As more and more anti-Trump activists showed up to Midtown to greet the president Monday, many found they couldn't move in as close to his condo tower as they would have liked.

NYPD officers could be seen herding protesters away from the base of the tower and pushing them toward fenced-in areas on nearby streets.

By 6:45 p.m. or so, both 56th and 57th streets had been blocked off between Fifth and Sixth avenues. And as the night wore on, additional stretches of 57th, 56th, 55th and Madison Avenue were blocked off as well.

"This is not what democracy looks like!" one woman (pictured above) yelled at a group of NYPD officers as they stopped her from walking toward Fifth Avenue from Sixth.

Another officer manning a barricade on 56th Street told Patch that the overall goal was to alleviate pressure on Fifth.

"We want to enter Abercrombie and Fitch," said a German tourist who approached the officer with her daughter. "Not today," the officer replied with a chuckle.

Many of the pricey, high-fashion storefronts along Fifth locked up earlier than usual Monday evening, bracing themselves for the incoming masses.

Luxury jewelry brand Van Cleef and Arpels, for one, pulled its display pieces hours before sunset:

"In the name of humanity, we refuse to accept a fascist America!" one protest leader shouted into her megaphone on the steps of the nearby Harry Winston building.

A (much) smaller counter-protest of what appeared to be a couple dozen Trump supporters was also spotted weaving through the crowd. (Their Facebook invite had said: "Let's greet our hometown hero to show our appreciation and support for all he's done for our nation and to say THANK YOU PRESIDENT TRUMP for continually keeping your promise to #MakeAmericaGreatAgain!!!")

Several streets were completely closed off to car traffic Monday morning in the hectic area of Midtown surrounding Trump Tower, as local cops and federal agents prepared for the president's arrival. "We are very confident we can handle any situation, including if the president decides to go out a restaurant or anything like that," NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio said. "NYPD and Secret Service are ready."

Click here for more details on the president's three-day itinerary in New York City.

Previously, on Sunday, more than 1,000 activists reportedly gathered outside Trump Tower to protest what they saw as the president's soft, somewhat wishy-washy reaction to Saturday's deadly white-power rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. "No Trump, no KKK, no fascist USA!" they chanted.

By Monday afternoon, a giant Trump-rat hybrid had materialized outside at the Plaza Hotel a few blocks north:

And later in the day, as protesters began descending on Midtown, NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio posted a video message for the president to Facebook.

"I hope while he's here, he thinks about the values of this place. I hope he thinks about New Yorkers and what we believe," the mayor said. "I hope he thinks about the people he grew up with who would never tolerate a white supremacist movement, who would never tolerate innocent protesters being mowed down out of hatred."

Photos, video and on-scene reporting by Marc Torrence (Patch Staff)