View Photo Gallery — A glimpse at McPherson Square’s Occupy D.C. residents on Day 19 of the protest.
It’s 6 p.m. and raining, and a wet Washington rush-hour crowd moves neatly around the mishmashed tarp-and-tent village in McPherson Square.
Day 19 of the Occupy DC demonstration is turning into night. The park, which in daylight has been teeming with people shouting and waving signs, is quieter now. The pulse of the headless Occupy DC movement is slower; the conversation is less about strategy and more about what’s for dinner.
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A night in the tent-dotted park unfolds:
6:30 p.m.
The weather is not kind. The wind licks at the makeshift homes — olive green and orange mushrooms that have sprung up on the park’s turf — and drizzling rain keeps demonstrators from their favorite evening activities: guitar circles (the night before, they sang along to Sublime’s “What I Got”), committee meetings and hoola-hooping.
While others meet at a nearby church for their daily general assembly meeting, remaining villagers mill about the park in donated blue ponchos that have “Transport Workers Union” inscribed on the backs in white lettering. “Where are all the hot girls?” someone asks near the information tent.
7 p.m.
Allura Rayford, a curly-haired 18-year-old who lives with her dad in Mount Rainier, moved to the park a few days ago. She’s one of the ponchoed wanderers. Rayford rattles off a list of job applications she has filled out recently — retail, restaurants, grocery stores — and says she’s open to any type of employment. In the meantime, she’s enjoying the vibes.
When asked why she’s there, she pauses, then says, “We are the 99 percent.”
8 p.m.
The center of life in this village is the food tent. James “J.C.” Cullen, a kind-faced 29-year-old from Greenbelt with plugs in his ears, is regarded as the kitchen keep. But like many people at the park, he shuns the implication of leadership.
“There’s not really anyone in charge, but I’ve been here a long time, so people sort of look for me,” said Cullen, who wears a T-shirt with the message “It’s not a phase.”
He calls this “the people’s tent,” where anyone can line up to receive one of about 1,500 meals served each day. Dinner tonight is vegetable-noodle soup donated by a local school, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and an assortment of chips and crackers.
Volunteers of all sorts drop in to help fill bowls, donate grease-stained bags of Five Guys fries or to just find someone to talk to.
When the gas in the generator runs out and the floodlights in the tent go dark, a man stopping by to chat suddenly snaps a green glow stick to life and hands it to Cullen. “We used to use these all the time in the war,” he says.
The kitchen runs on hot plates and donated food, water and ice from supporters. Cullen says the kitchen and finance committees accept anywhere between $1,500 and $2,000 per day in cash donations; tonight, some of it will go to a $100 gas card to bring that generator back to life.
9 p.m.
The rain stops for a moment. Rayford sheds the poncho to reveal short denim cutoffs, a tight black hoodie and Doc Martens with a Human Rights Campaign sticker on her left heel. Looking like she’s dressed for a night out on U Street — where she says she lived with her dad until last year — she hurries off to “discuss more stuff.”
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