Clashes broke out Friday morning in New York City , as Occupy Wall Street protesters celebrating the decision to postpone the cleaning decided to march down several streets nearby, against the orders of the NYPD. As Melissa Bell explained:
Despite city officials announcing a planned cleanup of Zuccotti Park had been canceled, some violence bubbled up in lower Manhattan on Friday morning.
After private owners granted the protesters reprieve from an order to leave the park, some protesters chose to march through the streets in celebration. Police asked protesters to stay on the sidewalk, but when they didn’t, a v-formation of police scooters drove through the crowd, running over one National Lawyers Guild observer.
CBS Local News station reports that violence broke out after the man went down. Police told CBS the reaction was prompted by rioters throwing bottles and garbage at the officers. The police used night sticks and batons and about a dozen protesters were arrested. Other protesters ended the march and returned to Zuccotti Park.
Protesters from “Occupy Wall Street” were heartened by the decision of the company that owns Zuccotti Park — their main staging ground — to postpone evicting the demonstrators to clean the park. As AP reported:
The official cleanup of a New York plaza where protesters have camped out for a month was postponed early Friday, sending up cheers from demonstrators who feared the effort was merely a pretext to evict them and said the victory emboldened their movement.
Protesters had already been scrambling to clean up the park on their own in hopes of staving off eviction when Deputy Mayor Cas Holloway announced that the owner of the private park, Brookfield Office Properties, had put off the cleaning.
“My understanding is that Brookfield got lots of calls from many elected officials threatening them and saying ... ‘We’re going to make your life more difficult,’” Mayor Michael Bloomberg said on his weekly radio show.
There was still some skepticism even after the protesters, who call their demonstration Occupy Wall Street, were told they could stay on.
“I’ll believe it when we’re able to stay here,” said Peter Hogness, 56, a union employee from Brooklyn. “One thing we have learned from this is that we need to rely on ourselves and not on promises from elected officials.”
Nonetheless, protesters declared it a boon to their movement, which blames Wall Street and corporate interests for the economic pain they say all but the wealthiest Americans have endured in the financial meltdown. Since starting a month ago in New York, the movement has spread to cities across the U.S. and the world.
“This development has emboldened the movement and sent a clear message that the power of the people has prevailed against Wall Street,” New York organizers said in a statement.
Zuccotti Park falls under a strange distinction of being a public space which is privately owned, which increased the uncertainty over the possible eviction of the protesters’ camp. As Elizabeth Flock related:
The ownership of Zuccotti Park, the 33,000-square-foot makeshift center of the Occupy Wall Street protests that was supposed to be cleared out today for cleaning, is a contradiction in terms.
Which could be good or bad for the protesters, depending on how you look at it.
The New York Times points out in a piece Friday that the park exists in a “strange category of New York parkland” — while it’s privately owned, it’s also a public space.
“The park was established in a wave of development that spurred corporate plazas after changes were made to the city’s zoning laws in the early 1960s. The laws generally give real estate developers zoning concessions in exchange for public space,” according to the Times.
Zuccotti has proved to be a great location choice for protesters, in part because it’s in the heart of New York’s financial district, but also because it is privately owned.
Since it is not a city park, park owner Brookfield Office Properties needs to ask for the assistance of police if it wants it, which it did shortly before canceling today’s cleaning.
While the city’s parks all have strict rules and curfews, the latest at 1 a.m., Zuccotti is open all night and has yet to enforce new rules against camping and sleeping bags.
Brookfield has also so far been unwilling to intervene much in the protests, issuing an initial statement that it was okay with it if the protesters stayed on the private property.
More from The Washington Post
Behind the Numbers: Public ire hits Wall Street, and government
On Faith: Occupy Wall Street: The American Dream 2.0
The Fix: Is Occupy Wall Street overblown?
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