Times Square crowd colorful

NEW YORK – Thousands packed Times Square and surrounding streets in scenes reminiscent of New Year’s Eve as the Occupy Wall Street movement descended Saturday on the “Crossroads of the World.”

The event took on a festive mood as a crowd estimated at more than 10,000 filled Times Square at 5 p.m.

Fueled by calls to action through social media, students, union members and street theater groups played homemade instruments and chanted, “We are the 99 percent.”

The theatrics included people dressed as zombies and in thrift-store-purchased suits designed to mock Wall Street bankers they denounce as “the 1 percent.”

Crowds erupted in cheers each time Times Square’s ticker showed the headline: “Occupy Wall Street movement goes worldwide.”