For a couple of hours on Saturday afternoon, the din of midtown traffic was replaced by thousands of marchers whistling, cheering and singing folk songs at a ‘No Kings’ protest down Seventh Avenue in Manhattan.
The demonstration, which broadly denounced the Trump administration’s policies, brought out students worried about funding their education, healthcare workers watching federal funds drain from public initiatives and New Yorkers fed up with the administration’s focus on ejecting immigrants in a city that’s long prided itself as a haven for migrants.
“One of the many values that this city has is that everyone is welcome here,” said Mika DeRoo, who has lived in New York for decades. She carried a sign with a picture of a cocktail that read “I like my Manhattan straight up with no ICE.”
New Yorkers protest the Trump administration at a No Kings rally in Manhattan, Oct. 18, 2025. Credit: Alex Krales/THE CITY
“Almost every value that I hold dear is being eroded by this administration,” she said.
A few blocks away, a first-year college student named Ruby Rodriguez carried an “I heart Immigrant New York” sign that she had leftover from another protest earlier this year. Born and raised in The Bronx, she said she worried about losing access to the student loans that pay for her college tuition.
“I don’t want my education to be taken away,” said Rodriguez, who came to the march with a few of her classmates. “It just doesn’t feel like our future is very promising right now.”
New Yorkers protest the Trump administration at a No Kings rally in Manhattan, Oct. 18, 2025. Credit: Alex Krales/THE CITY
Still, the mood of the crowd stayed upbeat and even cheerful. The NYPD reported that it made no arrests and that more than 100,000 people had marched in different ‘No Kings’ protests across the five boroughs.
At one point, a reveler at the Manhattan ‘No Kings’ rally in Times Square pulled out a small harmonica to play a tune. Some of the other marchers caught on to the melody, and the words of the classic came slowly and then faster and louder. “This land is your land/ This land is my land/ From California to the New York Island,” they sang.
The song gave way to a new round of cheers: “Hey hey, ho ho, Donald Trump has got to go.”
A number of signs decried the Trump Justice Department’s recent indictment of state Attorney General Letitia James on bank fraud charges in the Eastern District of Virginia.
New Yorkers protest the Trump administration at a No Kings rally in Manhattan, Oct. 18, 2025. Credit: Alex Krales/THE CITY
Nearby, Kate Sales said that she hoped the large turnout would be a sign to the Trump administration to refrain from deploying federal troops to New York, as it has to other major cities like Los Angeles, Chicago and Portland. As she walked, Sales carried a sign that stated simply: “New York Says No.”
“I hate that Trump is already defunding our big transit infrastructure projects like the Second Avenue subway and persecuting his political enemies, like Tish James,” Sales said.
The Manhattan march, which stretched from 47th street to 14th street, was just one of more than 2,600 protests planned across the country by a coalition of groups, including the progressive organization Indivisible.
DeRoo said the lesson she’s learned from other activists is that you never know which action will be the one that causes a bigger shift. This is her third ‘No Kings’ march this year: “You come together and you try lots of things and you keep going.”
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