Walking down Broadway I almost missed it. I was on Broadway's east side and the occupied area ended just short of Broadway's west side. Had the colorfulness of Zuccotti Park not caught my eye I'd have gone right by it.
So here is the first thing: The area of Occupy Wall Street is pretty small.
And here is the second thing: As is almost always the case, my right wing friends are wrong. No way the Occupation and its related traffic are hurting nearby businesses. The Park is isolated and doesn't border on any stores. In fact, on the sidewalks closest there are a whole bunch of food carts, T Shirt vendors, button dealers and such folk.
Small business is thriving!
The perimeter of the Park is crowded with people passing out leaflets carrying signs and talking up a whole variety of causes. The inside is practically busting over with tents of various sizes, almost all tightly packed upon one another. There are some walk ways in between, but so little room that I feared I'd step on someone's tent or, worse, someone lounging inside. The outer and inner areas are separated by metal barriers that you often see at parades. It helped give the tent area a very segregated, almost imprisoned look. But people moved easily between the areas.
Feeling like the inner part was more "hard core" and that it would be intrusive for me to be there, I walked around the perimeter. I saw 1 sign supporting Obama, several against fracking, a sign about owning a railroad so it could be changed...apparently a quote from Teddy Roosevelt...and another next to it about taking over a bank. There was a huge placard extolling getting along with the community and containing a list of rules to minimize problems. It had the number of "community relations" people to call about any difficulties...I wondered if these problem solvers were the occupiers themselves, the police or city officials.
There were lots of cops, all in the outer area and practically all standing around casually with nothing to do. One cop told a group of people who'd gathered to closely examine a sign to move on as they were blocking the sidewalk. A young man came up on a cop who was walking along and began giving him a shoulder massage. Reminded me of the time that President Bush did that to the President of Germany. She didn't like it at all and I remember her shoulders really tensing. The cop, however, handled it better. He just kept walking.
A young man came up to me and asked if we knew each other. He didn't look familiar so I said no and introduced myself. "Now we know each other," he noted and began walking with me. "What are you doing?" he asked. "Looking for a bathroom," I honestly answered. He gave me directions that made absolutely no sense. I thanked him and went off, grateful to be away. He seemed a little odd and I'd expected him to ask for money. I found a restaurant 2 blocks away that immediately let me use the facilities...didn't seem like a lot of bathroom use tension.
Relieved now and summoning up a bit of courage I walked inside the Park. There was a medical tent filled with stuff and also with a great big dog laying on the floor. The library felt a bit more friendly and I walked thru it...books and magazines tightly packed. Seemed odd to be in a library that was so dark. Hard to imagine life without electric lights! In the middle of the Park...the big communal kitchen. I saw 4 women inside hard at work. A sign outside said "if you steal from the people's kitchen, you're stealing from the people. Don't do it."
A young man asked me if he could ask me a question. When I agreed he asked if I could name the state that ends with a "k." Can you? "Alaska is close," I said, feeling clever. He laughed and looked impressed, before replying "as is Nebraska and North and South Dakota." Smart ass! No wonder the 1% hates him! "It's not a trick question," he emphasized, so I thought about it some more before it hit me:
New York!
"I ask people," he said "so people will understand it's important to look at things differently." O.K. We can miss the obvious. Cute. "And what about you," I asked. "How do you look at things differently?" Well, it seems he's from Arizona and came here last week to talk about this project he's gotten involved with...and then his friend came along and whisked him off. Oh, well. I walked to the west end of the Park and the drummers.
THIS was intense. Five or six drummers pounding away. A saxaphone player. A really focused looking woman dancing to the beat. Non stop. Fierce. Loud. Many people on the street, most with their phones out, shooting the scene, recording it. Louder and louder, I sat down to listen. There is a pizza place across the street. Two stories of apartments about it. I wondered what it was like to live there. Not good. I went over to a shrine like table filled with chachkas. Then I was back out on the perimeter.
That's where I came upon the bikes! At first I thought it was the Occupation work out place. But no, it's where stationary bikers generate electricity for the community. Two bikers were active and the guy I spoke to looked in great shape. "I'm really a runner," he bragged. An older gentlement next to me said, "well, you certainly look like a runner." I waited to see if either would comment on the kind of athlete I looked like. Nope. Instead we discussed reforming capitalism v overthrowing it. We agreed that reform was really the way to go.
Down the street I walked and came upon a sign woman. She wore 3 layers of signs, each filled with very small writing. I put my glasses on and read. Seems I was having difficulty concentrating. Can't remember a word of it. But she is an anthropology grad student just back from a year in Fiji and on her way to the big anthropology conference beginning tomorrow in Montreal. She's from Georgia and finds New York to be overwhelmingly big and noisy. But she felt she had to be to the Occupation and, now that she has, thinks New York is pretty neat. She took out a bag of vegetable and offered me some. We both ate a raddish and commented on its surprising spiciness. She spoke about the families she met in Fiji and how, over time, they got beyond seeing her as a stereotypical american. This reminded me of my time in Kentucky and getting beyond my "hillbilly" stereotypes and theirs of Jews and New Yorkers.
She said that the diversity, the many different things that mattered to the people there was what had most impressed her. But then we spoke of a diverse person of a different sort...a guy who'd approached her to discuss his big issue...sniffing the butts of women. His ultimate goal was for people to be having sex in public. We agreed that his approach was unlikely to succeed. More importantly this represents the kind of crazies that can be attracted there. Since I'm working in therapy with an occupier who was sexually abused there, no doubt this is something bad.
I got to the corner ready to head for the subway when I heard singing...This Land Is Your Land, one of my favorites, so I stopped to listen. A group of elderly gentlemen, old lefties in song. Really wonderful. They tried to get me to join them for their followup, even giving me a copy of the words. The Occupy Wall Street Song. It concludes: In parks and squares across the land
People are rising hand in hand
So join the movement, take a stand!
Occupy for change
I helped out by not joining in. It was a really nice way to end.
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