The official rally area was on the mall between 3rd and 7th streets.
The picture of the crowd above was taken from in front of the
Smithsonian at about 10th street. At the far right, you can see a
portable surveillance stand used by the park police that was set up at
about 7th street. The area in and around the official rally area was
packed with people and you can't even really see it in this picture.
We were unable to get up to 7th street on the edge of the mall.
We waited in line for about an hour at the Shady Grove metro station
just to buy a ticket (as miscalculation; we should have stopped by the
station the night before). Our train was nearly full when it departed
the station. By two or three stops down the line, we couldn't really
pick up many more passengers, but the platforms at every stop along
the line were full of people waiting. When we arrived downtown and
walked toward the mall at about 12:30 (half an hour or so after the
rally started) many people were already leaving, presumably because of
the size of the crowd. Once we arrived on the mall, we could
understand why. Since they had only planned for 3rd to 7th street,
there were no speakers or video monitors beyond 7th street and it was
impossible to see or hear anything that was going on on stage except
for bits of song performances and an occasional exclamation.
When the rally ended at 3:00pm, we were on 7th street and started
walking north with the crowd. The entire street was full of people as
far as I could see, and we were jammed in with the crowd. It was
nearly impossible to get cell phone reception during the entire rally
and for several hours afterward, but we did manage to meet up with
some friends for a while before trying to board a train back out to
Shady Grove. Even when we left at around 6:00pm, the station was
still full of people and we let one full train go by. The second
train had room, but by the time we departed it was packed.
So, just how many people were there? An AP story I saw on 10/31 said
"tens of thousands", which although correct in a sense (I mean, yes,
many tens of thousands) to me seems to imply less than 100,000,
when I'm pretty sure significantly understimates the actual total.
But just how should the number be estimated? A simple measurement
with google maps shows the distance between 3rd and 7th streets is
about 3/10 of a mile, and the mall is about 1/10 of a mile across. So
calculating that area in square feet, we find (3/10)*(1/10)*5280*5280
or a little over 830,000 square feet. If each person there had 4
square feet to stand (I'm not sure, they were pretty well packed in
from what I could tell) then that is more than 200,000 people in that
space alone, and as you can see, there were many more people than
could fit between 3rd and 7th. The crowd spilled out along the sides
of the mall near the stage, and people were constantly moving into and
out of the area. I would say easily 350,000, or perhaps as many as
500,000 people attended at some point during the day. The museums
also appeared to be packed, I'm guessing with people who gave up on
the rally and decided to make the best of their day on the mall.
