Capital New York

At 7:30 in the morning yesterday, a small group of mostly middle-aged women and a few mostly younger men convened in front of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. They'd come to take part in a protest in which mothers would walk their strollers from the Met to Michael Bloomberg's townhouse not far away on East 79th Street.

Nicole Cicogna, an executive director of Hartley Houses, a community center with programming for children, immigrants and the elderly, was there; she shook her long brown hair and fiddled with her Blackberry. There were three weeks only, she said, before Mayor Michael Bloomberg's budget proposal, which cuts 29 percent of the slots for after-school and childcare situations for low-income families, becomes law.

A soft-spoken graduate of Beloit College in Wisconsin, Gregory Brender, organized the affair. He said he became involved in the battle because his mother is a childcare provider. His father, a jokey former CBS audio man, handed out neon posters reading "DON'T CUT OUR EDUCATION" while his friend, Matt Jasper, coached the mothers in some protest songs he'd organized for the occasion.

A-B-C-D-E-F-G, help us restore kids funding, Jasper sang, strumming at his guitar and nodding at shy singers. The air was heavy and sticky. People wiped their brows with tissues and wondered why there weren’t more children around: there was one toddler in a stroller and one 7-year-old.

“He was in bed,” one mother said. “I let him sleep.”

After a few more songs—“Mean Mayor Mike” and “I’ve Always Been a Kid”—Brender stood in the center. “We’re a bunch of nice people singing,” he said. Then he nodded at the police. “We don’t have money for a ticket. Even if you’re in the right.”

The police laughed, it was friendly. “Put the kids in the front. They’re our best visual,” Brender told the group.

Inez Carbone, mother of the 7-year-old, Isaiah, a Chelsea resident, complied.

“Not everyone can afford to pay high childcare,” she said. “They represent our kids every morning when we drop them off, and every evening when we pick them up.”

The group argues in its literature that each dollar cut from the city's low-income childcare budget leads to a $1.86 loss in economic activity because childcare programs save future costs for remedial education and lowered high-school graduation rates. Mothers without childcare are often forced to quit working, which leads them to draw on government programs such as food stamps and low-income housing.

As the group marched across Fifth Avenue and onto the block of the Mayor’s townhouse, the boy posed for pictures and handed fliers to reluctant bystanders, which detailed an alternate plan: reducing bank contracts by 10 percent, taxing plastic bags and the rich.

A man wearing a blue T-shirt from the New York Parents Union yelled like a drill sergeant.

“What do we want?”

“Childcare!” They cheered.

“When do we want it?”

“Now!”

For a half hour, they circled the sidewalk, waving signs and ignoring some nasty looks from pedestrians. Michael Bloomberg, it appeared, was not at home, or not coming out yet, even at that early hour. The group sang "Where is Michael" to the tune of "Frère Jacques" for a bit. Then the police officer from in front of the museum reappeared and spoke quietly with Brender and his friend, who then shuffled the group toward the 79th Street subway station.

“I have five other programs to direct,” said Nicole Cicogna on the walk to the station, “but this one is taking precedence.”

She looked at a woman who was giving her poster to the organizers.

“Where are you headed?” she asked her.

“Back to work.”

“Back to fight!” said Cicogna.

“Back to the salt mines,” said the woman.

They both laughed and said goodbye.