dagblog - Comments for "Occupy Wall Street to be Evicted"

Grand Central Station, maybe.

Oxy Mora — Tue, 18 Oct 2011 19:24:52 +0000

In reply to A The New Yorker description

Grand Central Station, maybe.

A The New Yorker description

artappraiser — Tue, 18 Oct 2011 19:20:17 +0000

In reply to Occupy Wall Street to be Evicted

A The New Yorker description of what ended up happening. It reminds me of a Dad confronting his kid and saying "I'm only going to say this once: clean up your room." And the kid did, and Mom stopped her bitching.

Wall Street Postcard: Preoccupied
by Lizzie Widdicombe for the October 24, 2011 issue

[....]

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....

Read more http://www.newyorker.com/talk/2011/10/24/111024ta_talk_widdicombe#ixzz1bA7NrO00

Personally, I suspect Bloomberg is figuring that there's no sense in making a big scene when the weather will assist mightily in changing the situation in a few months time.

news on the privately-owned

artappraiser — Tue, 18 Oct 2011 19:04:01 +0000

In reply to Manhattan has hundreds of

news on the privately-owned public space topic today:

‘No Camping’ Signs Begin to Sprout
By Alice Speri, New York Times, Oct. 18

Just in case the Occupy Wall Streeters are getting any ideas about expanding their territory or scoping out alternative sleeping sites, some of the privately owned public spaces in the city are giving notice: Don’t even think of camping here.

Signs have gone up in at least three plazas in Midtown — one of them owned by Zuccotti Park’s owner, Brookfield Properties; two owned by another developer — forbidding “camping and/or the erection of tents or other structures” and “the placement of tarps or sleeping bags,” among other things.

[....]

While city-owned parks all have nighttime curfews, the 520 or so privately owned parks, arcades and plazas in the city fall into a gray area, and about half of them are required to be open 24 hours a day under the deals they struck with the city to be allowed to build more densely in return for creating public space. Even the ones open round the clock, though, are allowed to make their own rules.

[....]

Manhattan has hundreds of

artappraiser — Tue, 18 Oct 2011 03:34:15 +0000

In reply to I'm confused--in a quick read

Manhattan has hundreds of privately-owned public spaces where people can sit for a spell and enjoy a nice day in front of a waterfall or meet with a friend for a bag lunch. This is owing to deals with the adjacent building developers where if they provide a maintained public space as part of their project, they are then allowed something else, like more stories on a building or using more of the airspace or similar. It's one a them urban planning thingies, to keep Manhattan "livable."

The ironic thing is, NYC's publicly-owned parks all have long had curfews and would never have allowed things like putting up tables, much less sleeping overnight (not to mention you can't smoke in them anymore.) Most of the corporate-owned public spaces actually have much looser rules, they are just landscaped plazas between buildings, marked as public spaces, without guards or cops.

Furthermore, you don't see a lot of people get permits for demonstrations in like, Central Park, which is regularly policed, because generally it's agreed that it's there for everyone to share in some nature, peace, serenity and sanity in a crazy city on an island just 13 miles long.

On Friday The Times published a good article explaining the system and the particulars about Zuccotti:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/14/nyregion/zuccotti-park-is-privately-ow...

The Dwarf mayor confounds me

Richard Day — Mon, 17 Oct 2011 23:35:41 +0000

In reply to OWS 99% Bloomberg 1% He

The Dwarf mayor confounds me at times.

I mean why would he spend all his millions to be king of the castle if he were not to benefit from his position?

I get a kick out of his appearances on cable.

It is a wonder to behold; he is a genius.

But damn! I mean he controls the 'set up' so to speak.

There is an argument that the homeless and the hookers and the neerdowells screw up his ability to do biz! That is a given!

But placements; I mean the ability to put this building over here and that building over there must have something to do with power and the ability to make bucks.

I do not think that Bloomberg gives a shite about New Yorkers, but he gives a damn about Bloomberg Inc! And he can hide behind a facade that he cares about metropolitan peeps and make more money than he loses with that masque.

You're welcome. It's on my

Ramona — Mon, 17 Oct 2011 02:04:05 +0000

In reply to Thank you for sharing that,

You're welcome. It's on my list of flawless scenes -- perfect from beginning to end. And no, you don't need the sound, but the music accompanying it is pretty perfect, too.

No problem. Go for it.

Ramona — Mon, 17 Oct 2011 01:53:26 +0000

In reply to Rules? Now the government

No problem. Go for it.

Rules? Now the government

Resistance — Sun, 16 Oct 2011 22:17:53 +0000

In reply to If Powell wanted to make a

Rules? Now the government wants to talk about Rules?

Where would you have us go?

Thanks Ramona for this picture

If Powell wanted to make a

SleepinJeezus — Sun, 16 Oct 2011 21:47:21 +0000

In reply to Or do we all abide rules and

If Powell wanted to make a point about arbitrary suppression of freedom of political expression, don't you think it would likely be more effective if that was something the group talked about and tried to get agreement on so that either a lot more of them supported the actions of Powell and the others, or perhaps none did?

If there was a curfew or a rule in place banning the demonstrators from being on the site at the time of Powell's arrest, then I expect EVERY ONE of them who were present knew the potential consequences and supported Powell. Indeed, they all put themselves at risk of arrest.

Powell was one of the many who were arrested. Others weren't. Call it serendipity. But also call it point made. These guys aren't going to "ask for permission" to exercise their free speech rights as they see fit. Got a problem with that? They probably don't give a shit. Neither do I.

Civil disobedience is that, precisely. And if these guys don't want to be banished to Naperville to hold their protest under proper roolz, and they're willing to suffer the consequences of their civil disobedience, more power to them. (For reference, I suggest you look to see the disquiet MLK caused in the beginning - among his own black preachers and other supporters of Civil Rights, no less.)

If - on the other hand - there were no roolz to be violated, then the arrest was specious and illegal. That's a whole OTHER can of worms.

Or do we all abide rules and

AmericanDreamer — Sun, 16 Oct 2011 20:48:08 +0000

In reply to Does it occur to you at all

Or do we all abide rules and laws that insist we can't sit at lunch counters and we must sit in the back of the bus?

In the comment you responded to I cited getting arrested for sitting in at a lunch counter as a very positive example of civil disobedience in the face of an immoral law, partly because it's hard for the reporting of it not to create openings for protesters to send a clear message they want to send.

I also said we didn't have enough facts to fully assess the Grant Park situation, just noted that it wasn't clear to me what point Powell was trying to make.

If Powell wanted to make a point about arbitrary suppression of freedom of political expression, don't you think it would likely be more effective if that was something the group talked about and tried to get agreement on so that either a lot more of them supported the actions of Powell and the others, or perhaps none did? That's part of my point as well. This way it looks as though it was just a few members of the group meaning to send this message, if in fact your supposition about the message Powell and the others arrested for this wanted to send is the one they actually wanted to send (as opposed to something more amorphous, like proving a willingness to defy authority, whether justified or arbitrary or whatever).

Getting arrested can be a smart, potentially effective thing to do to advance a worthy cause. And it can also be a not particularly smart, not particularly effective thing to do to advance a worthy cause. My point was, and is, that being thoughtful about when to do that is a good idea for protestors who want to gain sympathetic public attention. If you think getting oneself arrested is inherently a smart and useful thing to do, and we all should just jerk the knee and applaud someone who does that, no matter the reason or thinking behind it, we just disagree on that.

dagblog - Comments for "Occupy Wall Street to be Evicted"

Grand Central Station, maybe.

A The New Yorker description

news on the privately-owned

Manhattan has hundreds of

The Dwarf mayor confounds me

You're welcome. It's on my

No problem. Go for it.

Rules? Now the government

​If Powell wanted to make a

Or do we all abide rules and

If Powell wanted to make a