http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/ ... rategy/?hpOctober 13, 2011, 2:30 pm
Facing Eviction, Protesters Talk Pre-emptive Cleanup StrategyBy ANEMONA HARTOCOLLIS** and ANDY NEWMAN
Ozier Muhammad/The New York TimesTwo protesters, Henry Perkins, left, and Fred Pantozzi, cleaning up at Zuccotti Park on Thursday.
There was much talk among the protesters at Zuccotti Park on Thursday about cleaning up after themselves to stave off eviction. But by early afternoon, only a handful had translated words into action and begun the daunting task of ridding the park of the accumulated detritus of a four-week occupation.
At meetings in the corner of the park, protesters discussed strategy in light of Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s announcement Wednesday night that the Occupy Wall Street protesters would have to leave temporarily starting at 7 a.m. Friday so that the park could be cleaned. Many have called the evacuation order a pretext for shutting down the protests permanently.
Some people advocated nonviolent resistance. But the wider consensus seemed to be that if the protesters cleaned up their own sleeping bags and tarps and pieces of cardboard and made the park better than new, the city and the park’s owners, Brookfield Properties, might relent and let them stay.
“Pick up a broom, pick up the trash, encourage people to wake at a decent hour,” one woman called to the crowd. “Show Mayor Bloomberg that he is dead wrong.”
Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg received a decidedly mixed reception when he went to Zuccotti Park Wednesday night to announce the cleanup.
An older woman who identified herself as a landscape artist even suggested that they take up a collection to replace trampled chrysanthemums. The crowd heard her out, but it was suggested that she needed to take this proposal to the finance committee.
Elsewhere in the park, Fred Pantozzi, a protester, was filling plastic bags with trash.
“Every action that you see here is autonomous,” Mr. Pantozzi said.
Beside him, Henry Perkins, 21, a student who was gathering up unclaimed sleeping bags, added, “autonomous enough for other people not to be doing it.”
Mr. Perkins, a student at the University of Alabama who has been protesting and sleeping in the park for five days, said that people’s bagged possessions would be taken to the “comfort center” where they could be retrieved.
Around 2:30, OccupyWallStNYC posted to Twitter that someone had shown up with a power washer, but that the site lacked a water supply.
Some guy just showed up with a power washer. Only issue: water supply? Ideas. Internet? #wallstcleanup #occupywallstreetThu Oct 13 18:31:02 via Twitter for iPad#OCCUPYWALLSTREET
OccupyWallStNYC
Many in the crowd were also concerned about a printed announcement distributed Thursday morning. It began, “To whom it my concern,” and described plans to clean the park and to prohibit all but lawful use — meaning no sleeping bags, tarps or sleeping on benches if that was bothering someone else.
The no-sleeping-bags rule and others like it were posted on a sign nearly three weeks ago, but they have not been enforced. In light of the imminent eviction, however, some protesters worried that the police would try to stop protesters from trying to bring the forbidden items back into the park after the cleaning.
Ozier Muhammad/The New York TimesA protester cleaning up at the site.
In a letter (see below) sent Tuesday to Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly requesting that the police remove the protesters, Brookfield’s chief executive, Richard B. Clark, noted that the park is “intended to be a relaxing, tree-filled oasis in the midst of the hustle and bustle of Lower Manhattan.”
He added that the activity of the protesters “violates the law, violates the rules of the park, deprives the community of its rights of quiet enjoyment of the park and creates health and public safety issues that need to be addressed immediately.”
Mayor Bloomberg cited the letter when he announced the park closing Wednesday night.
After describing the havoc wrought upon the park by the protesters, Mr. Clark wrote, “In light of this and the ongoing trespassing of the protesters, we are again requesting the assistance of the New York City Police Department to help clear the park” so that cleaning, maintenance and repairs could be performed.
[SEE LINK FOR IMAGE OF DOCUMENT FROM CLARK]Colin Moynihan and Cara Buckley contributed reporting.
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