Trust me if i'td been on youd have noticed the 2 million people, all the shops on that street boarded up too. Im thinking those signs must have been outdated or prepatory - or that the carnival really might have taken a new route miles off course (they had plans to hold it in Hyde Park one year).
Anyway the crowds should have been phenomenal, and the sound systems/ block parties. You should go one day- the procession is a bit sparse nowadays but the atmosphere is great, in a laid back Cal-if-orni-a kind of way, and with millions of people. I would PAY to see ur pics of it.