"New York Fun Exchange”
Reflections on a Ludic Occupation!
Part 2
continued from page 1
By Benjamin Shepard
Shrub Block
Ever ready to privatize profits and shut down the conversation taking place in Zuccotti Park, the city eventually moved to evict activists from the camp on November 15 . The next day I received an email. “Shrub/ Forest Block is growing! must be all the rain.” That was the email I got Wednesday night. “It looks like we have about 11 shrubs, a group of dancers and we will align with RMO.” There it was, the plan I'd almost forgotten. We'd talked about it Monday night during a quiet meeting, which ended with a crazy all night cat and mouse game between police protecting the 1% and activists speaking out for the other 99. A strange experience, it would take me a day or two to get my bear ings back after being told over and over again that I cannot stand on the sidewalk, that I will have to move along, as the police said all night long Monday night during Bloomberg’s eviction on Wall Street.
On November 17 , we were supposed to meet the Shrub Block on the corner of Trinity and Liberty by the coffee shop at 7 a.m. November 17 was planned as a day of direct action. The call of action was simple enough:
Enough of this economy that exploits and divides us. It's time we put an end to Wall Street's reign of terror and begin building an economy that works for all. We will gather in Liberty Square at 7:00 a.m., before the ring of the Trading Floor Bell, to prepare to confront Wall Street with the stories of people on the frontlines of economic injustice. There, before the Stock Exchange, we will exchange stories rather than stocks.
My alarm started to ring at 5:45. I got up at 6 , drank a quick cup of coffee and rode back into the city. An ominous feeling fluttered through my stomach. We had a faculty meeting at school that day and I did not want to be the one calling in to work saying I could not make it, as I have done on other occasions during other police sweeps and the like. Direct action and work rarely coordinate that well.
Riding past the newly squeaky clean Zuccotti Park, I parked my bike in front of the Burger King, just as I had Monday night. While some were not happy with Judge Stallman’s decision to prohibit tents from the space, there was nothing ideal about the encampment. It was an experiment, with tents increasingly getting in the way of organizing General Assemblies. The fact that the police were not allowing people to carry signs into the space felt like overkill. The bottom line of the ruling is it reaffirmed our right to be in the space 24/7.
Across the country and the world, the movement was expanding and expanding. Observing street actions which harkened back to the days of the Free Speech movement in Berkeley, my friend LM Bogad described the scene at the campus of the University of California at Berkeley in a text message: “1,000s and 1,000’s filling the plaza here in Berkeley campus is bursting at the seems, in the roof, in the trees, huge historic.” The campus was teeming with people.
Here in New York, the dynamic had shifted from one of open space to a feeling which harkened back to the 1984- like police conditions witnessed in 2004, when police arrested thousands, often for little more than walking on the sidewalk. Much of this was on my mind as I walked over to the coffee shop to grab a donut and wait for the action. Gradually activists from the Shrub Block began to appear. Some from the Living Theater , others from Rev. Billy and Times Up! We started dressing in elf costumes, with branches and leaves attached to our hats and arms. Waves of rallies would take off at separate times, starting at 8 p.m. We were going to be part of the Black Block.
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"When a forest comes to the castle Macbeth would be undone." |
Our theme was simple. We were part of the park which we had been kicked out of, finding our way into the streets throughout the city. “Kick us out the parks, we’ll take the streets,” we chanted throughout the rally.
We started rehearsing our chants.
“Hey Bloomberg, Beware! Now Liberty Park is everywhere.”
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Photo by Peter Shapiro |
LM Bogad mused that the action invoked the twist ending of Shakespeare’s Macbeth, when the seemingly impossible prophecy –“ When a forest comes to the castle Macbeth would be undone” – was fulfilled. We were the forest coming to the castle. While there was no prophecy that Wall Street would fall when we occupy it, the forest was compelled to storm the castle nonetheless. And perhaps some new mythology was already being created.
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Photo by Erik McGregor |
“Get up! Get down! Take the parks all over this town!” we chanted moving up to
Broadway, “Happy Birthday Liberty! Happy Birthday Liberty! Liberty Square!” we chimed in as the Rude Mechanical Orchestra played.
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"Happy birthday Liberty!" by Peter Shapiro |
And we sang:
“This park is your park
This park is my park
From Zuccotti to Tahrir Square
Up at Oakland and down to Boston
This park was made from you and me.”
We were part of the seeds of the movement dispersed all over the city, now taking root around the world. “Shrubs and Trees Occupy Wall Street!”
At Broadway, we vamped it up, starting our chants, bringing a little levity and meeting activists from
RMO, the PSC, and FIERCE also being kicked out of their own Occupation at the West Side Piers.
We were supposed to march on Wall Street with the last wave, which we joined.
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Photo by Erik McGregor |
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Photo by Erik McGregor |
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Photo by Erik McGregor |
We marched to Pine and Nassau, where activists took the street around 8:40 a.m.. The filled streets completely clogged up the arteries into the financial district. With more and more people clogging the arteries toward Wall Street, we moved further East, singing all the way. At Williams and Pine, a group filled the street, congesting another corner. The police stood watching, calling in reinforcements. With members of the Rude Mechanical Orchestra, the Shrub Block, Health Care Now, and FIERCE holding the space, police in riot gear started to push back. Sensing we were being surrounded, I ducked out of the space. Turning around I saw a policeman punch Monica in the face, as more and more police pushed in. By this point, activists hunkered down, sitting down, filling the corner. By 9 a.m., police started arresting people, dragging those they could grab out of the space. More and more activists and journalists moved in, some joining activists now being arrested, others observing and photographing from the street. RMO would play “We Shall Overcome” while another group sang an ironic rendition of the Star Spangled Banner as police dragged activists away.
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Photo by Peter Shapiro |
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Photo by Erik McGregor |
This would go on all morning as activists clogged the streets from Nassau to Pine and Beaver Streets. With an eye out for the orange protest netting used to sweep up protesters, I moved from site to site in the financial center before eventually moving back to Zuccotti Park. I had never seen the financial center so jammed up.
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Photo by Brennan Cavanaugh |
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Photo by Brennan Cavanaugh |
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Joshua Stephens |
By lunchtime, activists city wide would reconverge on Zuccotti, removing the police barricades surrounding the space. One man said he thought the yellow in the trees felt like an Akira Kurosawa film. While some reveled about being back in the space, celebrating with dancing, the nerves of police as well as activists were fraying. Clashes escalated with reports of blood and injuries from both sides. Play and performance were a way of communicating our update on the old twist end from Macbeth, when we Occupy Wall Street, the king will fall.