2025 – “No Kings” Day, Route 4, Paramus, NJ 6-14-25
Whenever I hear about these events, they always seem to be far away or just completed. I knew that this event was about to happen in 2,000 places across the nation, so I checked to see if any were nearby.
TWO were scheduled within about 3 miles of me: Teaneck to the east and Paramus to the west.
Teaneck’s protest was a short march to the Municipal Building………..that meant lots of signs. Paramus’ event was on – actually, “over” – a major highway (Route 4), with large-letter messages attached to a pedestrian overpass facing both eastbound and westbound traffic, while many people waved to cars from the overpass, resulting in lots of horn-honking. Additionally, many more people with signs gathered at road-level on both sides of the highway.
Paramus sounded way more interesting and photographically-challenging, so this was not a difficult decision.
The event was scheduled from 10am – 4pm. I didn’t know how crazy/busy it might be or what the parking situation was (neither turned out to be a problem), so I was there and ready to shoot at 9:15am.
Not many people were there:
I shot what I could and was ready to pack it in by 10am. But then people started pouring in (I wished I had been smart enough to do the same).
At about 9:40am, I went up the steps to the overpass, met the man in charge and took pictures of the 10-12 people there in the passway:
…..and the backs of people waving to the cars below:
…..and also of the signs that others were holding high when there were no more open waving spaces by the overpass’ fencing:
Click to enlarge the Kings/Jesters sign. Most are easily identifiable. I think the jester in the upper left is aiming at a canine in a tree.
I don’t know how many – if any – of the drivers honking at 60mph could read those signs, so I’m guessing that many of the overpass’ sign holders eventually found their way down to road level, where their signs would be more visible (but not necessarily more readable at 60mph).
Back on the ground, I found these two (actually, three) with a staggering age differential between them, but they were there for very similar reasons:
Actually, I was stunned by the similarity between the picture in the middle of the man’s sign and the image you see on the right.
This protest spans generations. No one is happy.
I had seen this woman and her sign/flag earlier up in that overpass, but now I get them all together from road level:
Moving slightly to the right, I was hoping to get more of the flag as they moved it up and down, but now I see something I didn’t notice when I hit the shutter: the back of his hat says “Canada”:
Nice to think he may have come all the way down here to wave an American flag (he needs to put a “No 51st state!” message on the back of his coat).
So now it’s 10:02am and the overpass is filling up nicely:
(this is when I should have arrived)
The westbound (top) and eastbound (bottom) views of the overpass:
My last shot of “We The Overpass People” at 10:29am:
But I’m not quite done. My drive home took me down Route 4 past the overpass. I got my phone out and took two quickies as I honked my horn at 10:34am:
Obviously, I had a bunch of pix and vids to upload when I got home, lunch to eat and a busy afternoon ahead, but I wanted to go back to the overpass just to see how crowded it got (and to make up for showing up too early in the morning).
I had between a half-hour and an hour to squeeze it in, but when I looked out of my apartment window, it was raining a lot harder (it had been a medium drizzle most of the AM, as you might be able to see in some of the videos).
Pass.
And now on to the videos:
1. iPhone vertical: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LCGTWdagQEY
Did anyone notice a sign that said, “No Dictotors Allowed!” ? (Ain’t all us guys one of those?)
2. iPhone horizontal (very short): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lpM4353dcCY
3. Camera on tripod: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KTGoQNSKgAw
(read video descriptions)
I think I got what I needed.
Nice shots, as usual. I went to the demo in Rutherford. I had to go somewhere!