Preoccupied

Visiting the site of Occupy Wall Street last week—a month after the protest began, and shortly before Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s threatened and aborted cleanup—was a bit like visiting a civilization at its peak: Paris in the twenties, Rome in the second century, or, at the very least, Timbuktu in the fifteen hundreds. Zuccotti Park, once a humble office plaza, had developed its own language—the “human microphone” that the protesters use to amplify their voices without megaphones had popularized terms like “block” and “mic check” and “temperature check” (wiggling fingers); it had a financial bureau (the group claims to have raised more than a hundred and fifty thousand dollars); and was equipped with a newspaper, a library, and a space for worship (a “sacred tree,” ringed by candles, near the drum circle). Its influence and culture had spread across the land, and it had inspired fear among its enemies. Deutsche Bank employees were having black cars pick them up blocks away from the office; New York Stock Exchange workers were taking roundabout routes to the trading floor; and the Brooks Brothers at the corner of Trinity Place and Liberty Street had given up hope of selling ties on the weekends. “Something good will come out of it, don’t get me wrong,” a Brooks Brothers manager said of the movement. “But it’s not good for business.”

On Wednesday, a cold October rain was falling, and nearly every inch of the 3,300-square-foot park was heaped with plastic tarps. Tents are against park rules, and police officers had been coming through to cut them down. Landmarks and little neighborhoods had emerged: the papier-mâché megaphone; the press station; the Women’s Safe Space. At lunchtime, near the comfort station—bins stocked with clean socks, toilet paper, and sleeping bags—the kitchen was serving donated pizza, pork buns, and tuna sandwiches. TV crews mingled with drop-in protesters—construction workers on lunch break, a Canada Dry sales consultant from a nearby office—as people made announcements, using the human microphone. (“We would like to find / A sign-language interpreter / Available in the here and now.”)

“Honestly, it’s great here,” said Kevin Monahan, a twenty-five-year-old former garbage-truck driver wearing a yellow rain poncho and a headband with skulls on it. “We’re well fed, warm at night. I’ve made more friends here than I did in college.” He pointed to a group of punks who had formed a circle on some blue tarps and were teasing one another’s hair, and said, “I probably get along with those guys best.”

The ongoing search for the movement’s purpose still turned up diverse, though not unrelated, sources of outrage: income inequality, corporate influence in government, student debt. People handed out anti-fracking flyers. Lucas Bimson, a clean-cut twenty-one-year-old who had just arrived from California with a suitcase, chatted eloquently about the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act. The Buddhist scholar Robert Thurman made a speech, breaking his words into chunks, so that the crowd could repeat them. “Here we are in Liberty Plaza,” he said, citing an old name for the park. “And we’re trying to keep liberty going on this planet /And, actually, this planet is in dire jeopardy!” Also on the schedule: a debate about purchasing a biodiesel generator; observation of a “pagan sacred space”; and yoga (people gathered around the sacred tree, put their hands behind their heads, and flapped their arms back and forth while a guru shouted, “Think of all the reasons you don’t want to be doing this!”).

A little before seven, Mayor Bloomberg arrived. He entered the park, flanked by a cameraman and a bodyguard, and worked his way down the narrow path to its center. It was dark out, and the crowd pressed in around him. “You have a right to protest,” he said, almost inaudibly, and brought up the park’s owner, Brookfield Office Properties, which was planning to send in a cleaning crew. “Brookfield, they have some rights, too.”

The crowd began to chant “Billionaire Bloomberg go to hell!” and “You are the one per cent!” The atmosphere was tense, and the Mayor looked a bit frightened. He proceeded quickly to Trinity Place and sped off in a black sedan.

“He’s the richest person in the country,” a protester said (erroneously) as he left. “We don’t welcome him in this park.”

“Yes, we do,” said Bob Trimper, an art installer with a ponytail. “We welcome everybody.”

“Fuck that.”

“Anger is an expression of fear.”

By Friday morning, at 5 A.M., the park looked completely different. The library and the comfort station had been tidied up, the tarps and pillows had been stacked in piles next to storage containers. More than a hundred people milled around holding brooms and scrub brushes: the protesters had transformed into a cleanup crew. The air was muggy—a Biblical storm had swept in during the night—and the park smelled of cigarette smoke and disinfectant. Some nervous policemen guarded the perimeter, but by 6 A.M. the Brookfield crews hadn’t shown up.

“I’m excited to be defending this space,” said Ben Shepard, a CUNY professor who writes about public spaces, holding a fleece blanket around his shoulders. “We never knew exactly how publicly accessible this kind of park would be, and now we’re testing it.” A little after seven, someone shouted, “I have an announcement from Brookfield Properties!,” and said that the cleaning would be postponed. There was cheering, and a makeshift marching band sashayed through. Someone yelled that a faction of protesters was leaving to march down to Wall Street—a development that would, inevitably, lead to scuffles with the police, undermining the Gandhian glow that had momentarily graced the proceedings.

Back at the park, Kevin Doherty, a protester in a backward cap, looked around. “It’s kind of fun,” he said. “Chanting mobs are fun for a day.”

Origin
Source: New Yorker