Harlemites Occupy Themselves With An 11-mile Walk to Wall Street via harlemworldblog.wordpress.com

Harlem and upper Manhattan leaders and residents are getting their walking shoes ready for an 11-mile walk to join the Occupy Wall Street movement in lower Manhattan.

Community leaders, Harlem residents and labor union representatives will come together at W. 181st St. and St. Nicholas Ave. on Monday morning to march down Broadway to Zuccotti Park.

The walk, called the “End to End for 99%” march, is expected to be lead by leaders state Sen. Adriano Espaillat, Councilman Ydanis Rodriguez and Councilwoman Inez Dickens.

“We felt that it was a good gesture of solidarity,” Espaillat told the Daily News on Thursday. “It shows that Manhattan is together with this (movement).”

This march also provides an opportunity to involve more residents from Harlem, East Harlem, Washington Heights and Inwood in the effort, he said.

“There’s a lot of people that are being impacted that live in these neighborhoods,” Espaillat said. “Some people haven’t had a chance to go down there, and as we walk down there we will be dragging people with us. We hope to see people join us in Harlem, in the West Side, in Chelsea.”

Everyone is invited to participate, he said, putting out the call to “regular folks that are fed up with the state of the economy.”

The Occupy Wall Street protest started 48 days ago as a general cry of anger at financial inequality and it has rapidly spread around the world. Hundreds of protesters have been arrested since the protests began.

The uptown leaders formally announced the march Thursday in a press conference held in front of an abandoned apartment building on W. 182nd St. in Washington Heights to show the blight that remains uptown.

Espaillat says he’s ready for the walk, and he doesn’t plan to hop in a cab or jump on the subway on the way downtown.

“I’m going to walk it,” he said. “I got some new walking shoes.”