They threw chairs at police from the building. They turned on the fire protection system inside the hotel.

And, this leftist newspaper is worried about the turnout of fascist brownshirts

Occupy's Financial District protest falls short

Lots of rain. Lots of noise. Few arrests, and smaller crowds than expected.

All in all, Friday's big Occupy movement attempt to shut down San Francisco's Financial District was a mixed success for the protesters who led it - and something of a relief for those who had feared it.

Occupy San Francisco organizers mustered several hundred participants for their all-day protest against economic inequality, and as they marched throughout downtown staging rallies and skits and civil disobedience, they did manage to slow traffic and force a couple of businesses to shut down, including the headquarters of Wells Fargo Bank.

Unlike some major Occupy actions last year on both sides of the bay, nonviolence prevailed - although tensions between police and protesters flared after night fell as activists briefly occupied the vacant Cathedral Hill Hotel on Van Ness Avenue. Two officers were injured by thrown objects there, and at least five people were arrested before the demonstration ended around 11 p.m.

Nineteen people were arrested during the daytime actions, all but one when they refused to move while blocking Wells Fargo's doors.

Business goes on

The thousands of participants organizers had hoped for never materialized, though. And those who did show up did not paralyze business as usual - which sat just fine with many who had worried they might not get to work Friday.

"I think they had their day in the sun, so to speak, but it's a good thing people got to go to their jobs," said Raj-Ann Rekhi, who plans corporate events.

Organizers said they were happy the daytime demonstrators, which ranged from union members and longtime protesters to students and retirees, got their point across.

"It's a respectable crowd for a lousy weather day," said Bishop Joey of the First Church of the Last Laugh, a comedy troupe. "You know that for every person here there was someone else who would have been here and 10 who would have liked to have been here."

The protest, called Occupy Wall Street West, was timed to coincide with today's second anniversary of the Citizens United decision by the U.S. Supreme Court, which removed limits on how much money corporations and labor unions could donate to political causes. Protesters, many of whom supported the Occupy movement in the fall, said the decision exacerbated the divide between the rich and poor by handing too much power to big business.

The protest also served as the first major Occupy action of 2012 after the movement went into hibernation last month in the wake of police decisions to dismantle activists' tent cities in the Bay Area and nationwide.

The first arrests came early, when crowds blocked entrances at the Wells Fargo headquarters at 420 Montgomery St. Seven people were arrested on the Sacramento Street side of the high-rise around 9:30 a.m. Several more protesters were arrested an hour later when they moved back in front of the service entrance.

'Our job is the occupation!'

On another side of the bank, a number of people covered themselves in a large swath of black fabric and undulated en masse in what they called a "black blob" representing "the security state enshrouded in ever more secrecy."

A man on his way to work dismissively shouted "Get a job!" at the blob. One demonstrator retorted, "Our job is the occupation!" At noon, about 300 protesters began marching from Justin Herman Plaza up Market Street before turning north into the heart of the Financial District. At the same time, more than 200 activists massed outside the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals at Seventh and Mission streets to call for a constitutional amendment overturning the Citizens United decision.

The rally, like others held Friday at more than 100 courthouses across the United States including in Oakland, was called to "proclaim a truth that should be self-evident, even to the Supreme Court," declared one speaker, Abraham Entin of the organization Move to Amend. "Corporations are not people, and money is not speech."

Across town in the Mission District, a crowd of white-haired protesters marched to City Hall, where their demonstration managed to force the cancellation of the day's scheduled foreclosure auctions.

As night fell, the remaining 200, mostly young protesters gathered outside the empty Cathedral Hill Hotel at Van Ness Avenue and Geary Street and were met by police in riot helmets. Some activists threw bricks and bottles, injuring two officers, one in the chest and one in the arm. At least two protesters were then arrested.

Showdown on van ness

About 40 people broke in through a back entrance of the hotel and loudly cavorted in the 600-room building for two hours. When they threw furniture from the roof, several dozen police entered to clear the building. By 11 p.m. they had arrested three more people on suspicion of trespassing, and what seemed to be the rest of the crowd had left voluntarily.

Police Lt. Michael Redmond said his officers would go through the hotel room by room to search for stragglers.

The hotel was also taken over by homeless protesters in October, and they left voluntarily.

Earlier in the evening, two men with bandannas over their faces broke a window at the nearby Bentley Motors car dealership on Van Ness. One woman, Suzi Spangenberg, who said she was a seminarian, was pepper-sprayed as police sought to control the crowd. She was not arrested.

Geza Polony of Oakland, who joined the protests in the afternoon, said he was pleased the daytime actions had been nonviolent. Throughout the day, activist monitors in orange vests sought to calm protesters who did such things as pound on glass doors.

"My thing is trying to create a protest that isn't simply about the expression of anger and that calls attention to a nationwide issue," Polony said, "and is not simply about occupying a house or a tent."

Chronicle staff writers Nanette Asimov, Henry K. Lee and Will Kane and photographer Paul Chinn contributed to this report. E-mail the writers at mcabanatuan@sfchronicle.com, nasimov@sfchronicle.com andkfagan@sfchronicle.com.