Two weeks into Occupy Wall Street protests, movement is at a crossroads

On the topic of going indoors, one idea getting kicked around is occupying foreclosed buildings, something that has already happened on a small, temporary scale in Atlanta and Harlem. This lacks the visual punch and presence of an outdoor occupation, but it also provides a realistic solution to a pressing issue: the cold.

The Daily Show Eyes the Real Estate at Zuccotti Park
(Erik Hayden, The Atlantic Wire, November 17, 2011)

Last night, The Daily Show stirred up class divisions between Occupy Wall Street protesters, airing a pre-eviction segment of correspondent Samantha Bee visiting Zuccotti Park and framing it as a microcosm of the city: complete with different sections for poorer and richer seeming protesters.

The Zuccotti that The Daily Show's deft editors created had a "downtown" area (marked by drums circles) and "uptown" (where the People's Library was and "where the college hipsters that live in Brooklyn go," according to one "downtown" interviewee). The kicker for the segment was that the "uptown" elite made decisions that governed OWS in the quiet, pleasant-seeming atrium of the Deutsche Bank, one of those large, bailed-out kinds that the protesters were protesting, though protesters were evicted from that space as well on Wednesday. And, in a final narration, Bee points out the irony: "In any case, both the uptown elitists and the downtown poors agree--the occupation ended too early, they didn't even have time to create a middle class for this new society to crush."

Wall St. Commuter: “We’re All 99%. This Is Ridiculous.”
(Susanna Kim, ABC News, November 17, 2011)

As part of Occupy Wall Street’s plans for its largest protest ever, occupiers may garner more disdain from the 99 percent than the 1 percent by attempting to clog New York’s subway system. The notion of disrupting transit in the nation’s largest city isn’t sitting well with commuters, few of whom are Wall Street titans.

One commuter to the financial district expressed her frustration today over delays on her commute every day this week. Her normal commute should last about seven minutes but now takes 25 minutes.

“This has been every day for this past week, 25 minutes to get from Canal to Wall. It’s shameful — we are all 99 percent, this is ridiculous,” the unidentified woman told WABC.

The protesters’ “Day of Action” included rallying around the New York Stock Exchange to try to shut it down. Police blocked off the area surrounding it, Broad Street and Wall Street, and have made several arrests but business went on at the exchange as usual.

The goal of the protesters is to cause a disruption after anger at police and the city for clearing out their camping grounds in Zuccotti Park early Tuesday morning. Protesters plan to ride the subway this afternoon and march over the Brooklyn Bridge at 5 p.m. But who are they really disrupting?

Two-thirds of subway users, generally the people with the lowest incomes, pay $2.50 for a single ride. About a third of subway riders pay $104 for a 30-day subway pass, which tend to be the wealthiest users of public transportation, according to the New York Times. The income levels of subway riders are hard to come by, as New York City’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) doesn’t collect and distribute that data.

The New York City subway system has 468 stations, the largest number of public transit subway stations of any system in the world, according to the MTA. On an average weekday, 5,156,913 rides are taken on the subway. The Census Bureau’s American Community Survey reports 57.8 percent of New York City’s commuters use the subway, 21 percent walk, 7 percent drive alone, 2.3 percent carpool and 6.3 percent work at home, according to survey estimates from 2005 to 2009.

Occupy Wall Street was getting as tired as Charlie Sheen jokes about "winning."

The media were moving on. Questions about the protests were absent from recent Republican debates. Sympathetic neighbors had become frustrated. The police were tired. No amount of overtime was worth the hassle. Most disturbingly, assaults had turned a peaceful gathering into just another bad neighborhood.

Then New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg played right into the Occupy Wall Street movement's hands. He gave them a common enemy.

Mr. Bloomberg's postmidnight raid on the camp at Zuccotti Park swept the protesters from their spiritual home, but it re-energized the movement, too. I met Occupy Wall Street in the morning hours following the raid at Foley Square and then Duarte Park. I followed the group back to Zuccotti Park just eight hours after the eviction.

Along Church Street, the crowd seemed to expand. Well-wishers in cars honked their horns. Construction workers held up supportive signs. A trumpeter joined the march, playing the "Star-Spangled Banner" and "Stars and Stripes Forever."

Mr. Bloomberg's sweep woke up the hard-core protesters and ignited a second phase to the movement, articulated in a slogan that appeared on makeshift signs Tuesday morning: "You can't evict an idea."



Occupy Wall Street spokesman Mark Bray was tired that morning. He lamented the lost personal possessions tossed into Department of Sanitation Dumpsters, but there was good news: $250 in food was on its way to the hungry at Duarte Park.

Mr. Bray acknowledged that the protest had sharpened. Mr. Bloomberg, who made his fortune on Wall Street, had galvanized the troops. The police were now seen as an arm of the system.

"Bloomberg the bully," they said.

If the mayor was counting on business and neighborhood support, it was washed away by noon Tuesday. Nearby streets were packed with media, onlookers, protesters and residents.