For Bronx Occupy Wall Street activists, perhaps no meet-up location was more apt than in the shadow of the new Yankee Stadium. The dozen or so protesters that had assembled beside the McDonalds on 161 Street and River Avenue said that despite city involvement in the project, the community has yet to see the benefits of the new billion-dollar ballpark.

This was the Bronx leg of a 16 location, citywide “Occupy the Subways” protest, which would culminate downtown at Foley Square in downtown Manhattan.

The activists were among thousands taking up the battle against economic inequality on Occupy Wall Street’s National Day of Action, a day to celebrate the two-month anniversary of activists first taking up residence in Zuccotti Park. (Protesters were evicted two days before the mass protests.)

The stadium protest stood in a sharp contrast from the rest of the movement, and even from events earlier that morning. There were barely any cops and none in riot gear. And there were no bushy-haired youths clashing with charcoal suits.

Instead, there was longtime activist and Highbridge resident Agnes Johnson, a Hispanic mom and her young boy, members of the New York Civil Participation Project and Living Wage NYC Campaign workers (see front page story).

Just a few blocks south, stood the $500 million Gateway Center mall some had hoped would deliver retail jobs to revitalize the neighborhood.  To protesters, that made two major projects (along with the stadium), opened within months of each other, that were not benefiting local residents.  So they took their message to the subway.

Johnson was one of the five person group on the 4 train intent on convincing riders that changes had to be made. Johnson delivered improvised speeches that blamed Mayor Michael Bloomberg for closing schools, and expressed disappointment that her neighborhood had yet to reap the benefits of the new Yankee Stadium.

“I didn’t have to join the movement, the movement joined me,” she said.

In one train car, she was heckled by a bald man who wore a green sweatshirt and headphones. The train had come to a stop, and the rest of the group, including a Lens Blog photographer for the New York Times, had rushed to the next car. The group waited for her to appear from the shouting match with the man. When she emerged, she said, “I turned that whole cart against him.”

The 4 train group dissolved into the mass of bodies at Foley Square, where thousands of students, union workers and frustrated citizens gathered. By then it was bitterly cold. The sun had set and the events of the morning protests felt like they happened a different day.

Someone kicked down a barricade that protected the fountain that held Foley’s 50-f00t high obelisk-like sculpture, “Triumph of the Human Spirit.” Protesters moved in on the fountain, and many climbed beside the sculpture itself. The crowd would spend the following hours log-jammed into police barricades, inching toward the Brooklyn Bridge.