Yesterday, I witnessed one of the most iconic images of the protests I’ve seen so far, as the massive ABC news ticker in Times Square scrolled the headline “Occupy Wall Street Movement Goes Worldwide” while throngs of protesters moved beneath it, the giant billboards and screens above bombarding them with a constant stream of the very corporate consumerism that they had gathered against. As I took it all in, I heard a fellow protester proclaiming, “here she is, the Whore of Babylon, her legs spread wide for all the world to see.”
At 5PM the crowd filled all of Broadway from 40th Street to 48th Street, and within another hour even the small lanes that police had been keeping open for thru traffic seemed to have been shut down. Barricades still separated the sidewalks from the roads, though for what purpose, I could not tell. Making my way north, I finally reached 46th Street at around 6 pm. The crowd seemed more agitated here, and I soon saw why: mounted police had earlier ridden their horses into the crowd and were now looming threateningly near the northeast corner. A chant exhorting them to “get the horses out of here” went unheard, but they made no further advances.
After repeated mic checks, it was eventually established that the protest would be moving to Washington Square Park, where there would be free food (!) and a General Assembly at 10pm. Within the next hour, some of the crowd began to disperse. Police on megaphones repeatedly announced “please exit eastbound on 46th street.” This caused a great deal of confusion among the crowd – were they ordering us to leave or simply directing those people already trying to exit? Soon, a squadron of riot police approached from the east and occupied the middle of the road while people continued to exit via the sidewalks. Instead, I moved further north to 47th Street, where I finally met up with GI. This turned out to have been an inadvertently wise move.
Assuming the fun was mostly over, we had planned to head east and catch 
the train at Park Ave, but as we reached 6th Ave, we saw commotion and police sirens to the south. Rushing down towards 46th Street, we saw that the cops had apparently corralled the people that had followed the instructions to exit eastbound from Broadway by blocking off the intersection of 46th & 6th. Multiple police wagons lined the street, and bystanders confirmed that people had been arrested. As we were trying to make sense of the scene, a line of police began moving towards us, pushing us north along 6th Ave. One of them kept angrily shoving a protester who was backing away from him and repeatedly asking why we had no right to be on the sidewalk. Halfway up the block, they backed off and retreated to the wagons at the corner.
After stopping at my apartment to upload some video and photos, recharge our equipment, and fill up a thermos with two bottles of cider, we proceeded to Washington Square Park, where a table labeled “The People’s Kitchen” was handing out free pizza. The General Assembly had gathered at the fountain in the center and were letting individuals speak, once again using the ‘human mic’ system. When one speaker was introduced as “an NYU student who has an idea,” we couldn’t help but chortle. Eventually, the idea that became the main focus was that the movement was going to expand to occupy Washington Square Park, starting now.
I could not see the point. Unlike Zuccotti Park, which straddles a main thoroughfare and enjoys huge visibility, Washington Square Park is large and separated from the streets and the day-to-day life of the city, and anyone who has spent time there would realize that occupying it with a bunch of students, activists, and performers would be somewhat redundant. Fortunately, some speakers came forward to argue that most of us were not physically prepared to spend the night there, and as only half an hour remained until the curfew, would likely not even have time to put up an organized passive resistance. Vague promises were made to return to occupy the park another day, and as the curfew drew nearer, police began to surround the Square, pouring in from every entrance. A whiteshirt with a megaphone circled the square announcing that anyone who remained past the curfew would be arrested.
As the crowd began to clear, a small number of protesters remained sitting in the center of the fountain. We remained until the last possible second, hoping to catch their arrests, but it seemed that the police had decided to clear the rest of the park before dealing with them. Staying mere feet away from the line of cops marching towards us, we exited the south side of the park to across the street, where most of the crowd had gathered. At first, the police were only telling everyone to stay off the road and keep to the sidewalks. Then, without warning a group of cops wearing riot gear moved into the intersection, splitting the crowd and advancing on the sidewalk east of Thompson Street. Shouts of surprise and outrage rang from the crowd, and it was clear that some people were being apprehended.
After a few minutes, they seemed to retreat, and we took the opportunity to make our way east. Now positioned directly in front of the NYU Library, we realized that the cops had begun to advance again, pushing the crowd further and further east while flashing repeatedly blinking lights to obscure our cameras. No resistance was given other than chants of “NYPD: Who do you protect?” Somewhere in the chaos, a number of mic checks had announced that we were going to march back down to Zuccotti Park, and as we reached the southeast corner of the park, we saw more police rushing towards Broadway, but the scene there was less of a march than scattered groups of people walking south. Figuring there was nothing more to see, we went to grab a well-deserved drink.
A couple of things have become clear to me from my firsthand observations so far. I’ve so far been resistant to the claims that the movement needs to develop a clear agenda with bullet-pointed goals, as the overall message is already fairly clear to anyone who cares to listen. However, I do heartily agree with the critics who say that stronger organization is needed. The “open and democratic” decentralized model was great for the initial stages of several hundred people occupying Zuccotti Park; for a march of thousands that has now become part of a global movement, it is absurd. There needs to be some sort of council and committee that can coordinate with movements in other cities and nations, form tactical backup plans, and disseminate a clear message on the go without the embarrassing and confusing exchanges where a spontaneous chant calls on the crowd to perform some action while another group starts a chant disagreeing with these instructions.
Yesterday marked a watershed moment for the movement, with as many as 15,000 people filling Times Square, and simultaneous protests occurring in 82 countries. As the movement continues to reach critical mass, the question of “where do we go from here?” becomes ever more pressing.
Update from GI. Here is the video and photos from Times Square and Washington Square Park. In all 74 people were arrested.
This is some raw video of the police sweeping Washington Square Park.
Here are Tuna Melt’s great pics from Occupy Los Angeles. If you get pictures or video from Occupy events in your area, please send them to me so I can put them on our YouTube channel.
