Thousands of demonstrators took to the streets in lower Manhattan today to protest the growing gap between America's wealthiest and everyone else.

Under the "Occupy Wall Street" banner, the protesters marched from Zuccotti Park near Wall Street, past New York's City Hall and onto the Brooklyn Bridge.

Although most marchers took the pedestrian walkway on the bridge, a few hundred protestors pushed past the New York City police and entered the car lane section that heads across the river to Brooklyn.

Both car and pedestrian traffic was halted headed into Brooklyn, as the police and protestors squared off in the middle of the iconic bridge. Hundreds of protesters were corralled in the car lane by the police, who used nets to contain the crowd.

Many were arrested and carted off the bridge in police buses. Update at 8:06PM ET on Oct 1, 2011: a police spokesman is saying that over 50 have been arrested. Update at 8:16 ET on Oct 2, 2011: Between 700-800 were reportedly arrested yesterday.

The "Occupy Wall Street" movement has been going on for 15 days in New York and has now spread to other cities across America. A rally dubbed "Occupy Maine" was also held today in Portland, Maine's Monument Square.

See additional photos from the march on the Exception.