NEW YORK — Nearly 200 demonstrators, protesting the government-led bailout of Bear Stearns, pushed past security guards and forced their way into the investment bank's high-rise headquarters in Midtown Manhattan.
"Help Main Street, not Wall Street" was the chant that arose once the protesters amassed in the lobby on March 26. They also waved placards and sounded air horns as stunned Bear Stearns employees looked on.
The demonstration was organized by Neighborhood Assistance Corp., a nonprofit group, to denounce the Federal Reserve Board's decision to expend $29 billion to save Bear Stearns while millions of homeowners are at risk of foreclosure, the organization said.
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"Each of you represents millions of homeowners across the country who are under jeopardy and under threat because of the greedy profiteers at Bear Stearns and JP Morgan Chase," Reverend Graylan Hagler of Washington told the demonstrators.
Bruce Marks, the founder of Neighborhood Assistance, called the protest a great success. "The security guards couldn't stop us. We took over their house," he told reporters.
Before barging uninvited into the Bear Stearns building, the group held a rally outside JP Morgan Chase offices on Park Ave. There they chanted "JP Chase, what do you know. Corporate greed has got to go."
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