ENGL 1101: Fire, Disease, Disaster: Catastrophe and the Shaping of Urban Public Space

The resent events of Occupy Wall Street have attracted both positive and negative attention. The protest which started two months ago has now spread throughout the world, most notably in cities of the United States like San Francisco, Philadelphia, Boston, Los Angeles, and some four other major cities. This spread in my opinion can result in two things. One the movement will continue to grow by way of popularity and will become a great success. Two this continued growth means a larger amount of minds coming together and although this can seem great, occasionally this will lead in some protesters continuing to practice a safe nonviolence protest peacefully while others will turn to a more aggressive approach similar to Dr. King and Malcolm X. That said in regards to present day these protest have shown form of promise as a great positive, but the costs of the protest are beginning to be evident and the safety of the public is nearing boarder line dangerous.

In the article “Occupy Protests Across the Country Take Toll on City Budgets” written by Susanna Kim for ABC News on November 18, 2011, Kim discusses the general cost the protest has generated on major city budgets across the United States. The title “…..take toll on city budgets” is pretty accurate as the Occupy Wall Street protest do cost money, not like most believe it doesn’t. The major cost consumer that comes out of tax payers’ pockets is the paying of police overtime to oversee the protesters. According to Howard Wolfson, New York City’s Mayor Bloomberg’s deputy for government relations, the city has spent a wapping $6 million on the protest, to which Kim adds “not including the eviction on Tuesday”, which I will discuss later. In other cities such as Boston the protest has added some$ 575,000 to the budget cost and in the west coast cities like Denver, Seattle, and Oakland have added 365k, 626k, and $1 million respectably. As an example as to how much police oversee of the protest plays a role in these figures take the great city of Seattle for instants. Of its approximate $626,000 the police are paid overtime which comes to some $580,468 and all this in a 41 day span. Kim doesn’t really present an argument on her part beyond the title and the opening paragraph. In other words she appears neutral, but she does provide sourced numbers revealed by departments in their respected cities, and these numbers are quite large sums.

http://abcnews.go.com/Business/occupy-wall-street-protests-cost-cities-millions/story?id=14975940#.TslCirIkU-8

Earlier I had mentioned the eviction of this pass Tuesday, in which at approximately 1AM officers of the NYPD entered Zuccotti Park and cleared the space of protesters, tents, and all equipment that inhabited the space, followed by the disinfection of the park by the department of sanitation.That evening Mayor Michael Bloomberg held a news conference with other public officials to address the events of the morning. He discussed how Brookfield Properties, the owners of the park, had requested that the city enforce the no sleeping and formation of tents in the park. Furthermore Bloomberg explained that the time of the removal was essential due in part to the safety of regular commuters and to reduce confrontation. He also stressed he would reopen the park and the protester my return, but without their tents, which makes the Daily News’s Wednesday, November 16 headline “AND STAYOUT”  inaccurate. Bloomberg went on to reiterate the goals the city had set from the beginning of the protest of #1 public health and safety, and #2 provide the protesters the ability to exercise their first amendment rights. He then explain the ultimate reasons of the eviction when he stated “its next to imposable to navigate through the park…..we could not wait for someone in the park to get killed or to injure another first responder before acting.” The mayor explained the conditions at the park had become hazards for the public, first responders, and the protesters. He further emphasized what he has been saying from the beginning that he will provided the protesters the ability to protest, but not to a point when it interferes with the rest of the public’s wellbeing as he put it “…..but it does not give anyone the right to sleep in a park were otherwise take it over to the exclusion of others.”  What I found most important is that Mayor Bloomberg also stressed that he is the one who finally decided to act when he said “Make no mistake the final decision to act was mine and mine alone.” In my opinion this statement demonstrates the mayor’s ability to be able to take the blame if any were to hit surface.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Tbua_1oitRo -Mayor Bloomberg on OWS clean up

In my previous blog post “Inside the huddle of Occupy Wall Street” published on November 18, 2011 in Open Lab’s ENG1101Fire, Disease, Disaster: Catastrophe and the Shaping of Urban Public Space, I had quoted the famous Mahatma Gandhi when he said “…..be the change you wish to see in the world.” I also stated “like all change at first, difficult” in other words I am a true believer that every attempt in change things will always appear difficult, naturally that should be the case and would be strange if it wasn’t. The truth of the matter is even before the protest reached week 4 I understood that great difficulties await everyone in direct involvement. The cost to oversee the protests around the United States is one of those difficulties. If I were to ask you what movement has resulted in a cost free protest there wouldn’t be one you’d name. This said I dislike the fact that tax payer’s money is being spent on this, but I understand. After Tuesday’s eviction I hope this cost no longer increase at the rate that it has. In addition I agree with the mayor’s decision to evict protesters. Zoccotti Park was meant for the public and the formation of tents and the conditions created by the protesters made the space unsafe for those  who wish to enter. I recall when I visited two Fridays ago and was reluctant to touch the tents or any of the equipment for that matter due to the rumor of flu in the area, plus in regards to safety, what would have been the plan if a fire broke out in such a clusters space. I honestly believe there are protesters who fight for the movement in which they are a part of, but I also believe some of the occupiers were there just because they had nowhere else to go. This thought came to me even before I interviewed a young man from Maine who responded when asked why you protest “I don’t know. For the moment I have no place to live, really. So I figured I might as well join the club.” This was a great disappointment to me. In my opinion the protesters need to look at this past week as a challenge of finding a safer form of protesting, this way the city may stop delaying and placing a negative image on the movement. For it is one thing to fight for what you want and becoming the change that is wished to be seen, but it is another when the fight of the protest is organized and the safety of all effected isn’t.

https://openlab.citytech.cuny.edu/firedisease/2011/11/18/768/

“…..be the change you wish to see in the world” was perhaps Mahatma Gandhi’s most essential message to the world.  A message that has been put into play by the thousands of people who Occupy Wall Street today around the globe.  The heart of the movement and were the protesting began two months ago is Zuccotti Park in the Financial District of New York City and only a few blocks from Wall Street itself.  The protesters who occupy the park consistently say they have long felt wronged by the corporate forces of the world and have gathered to express this feeling of mass injustice.  Even more they gather to let it be known that they stand together as allies who fight against this injustice and hope that others will join in order to make all their voices heard as well.  Many of the protesters have gone on to say if now isn’t the right time to start this movement, then when is it really going to be?  Occupiers understand that this movement is like all change at first “difficult”, but the future of a true democratic society requires its membe rs to get involved.

This pass Friday I had the opportunity to visit Zuccotti Park and talk to some of the protesters about the movement. The first person I spoke to be for I entered the “camp grounds or lair” if you will was Officer Watson of the NYPD who sole purpose for his shift that day was to maintain order at the park. I had asked Officer Watson, what he thought the protesters stood for to which he responded “these protesters feel, as they put it the ‘1%’ has too much power over the 99%, the protesters, and they want to express their ideas and raise awareness in an attempt to get things done.” That one-percent he mentioned is the wealthy population of the country who, as the protesters explain, are manipulating government, politics, basically any area which involves money. The other ninety-nine percent is the reset of the population, that have no say in the pretty much anything that ultimately effects them, is the group the protesters represent. In my opinion it should not  be said it’s manipulation to explain this matter, but rather that money plays a major influential factor in government policies, banker regulations, electing of public officials, etc., in other words the influence comes before the manipulation.

After my discussion with Officer Watson I turned my attention towards the site of the protest which only was some six feet away. Rather than immediately conducting another interview I took this time to observe the people with in the park and those at its perimeter. A common thing I saw was protesters playing songs that pertained to the movement as loud as they possible could. Another thing I noticed was the discussions held amongst the protesters, themselves and the non-protesters who were, like me, interested to learn more about their cause. In addition to the discussions, songs, pedestrians who walked the busy sidewalk and distribution of flyers were the young protesters that sat against the low masonry exterior walls of the park and held there cardboard box signs that read “we are the 99%” and “we won’t talk the abuse any MORE” while others simply displayed images.

As I stood at the corner block intersection of Liberty Street and Broadway I was able to hear the load voices of not only the people that surrounded the park, but also the ones with in it. This made me want to investigate beyond the borders of the camp, so I entered. I was overwhelmed by the fact that the protesters basically made sure they took up every inch possible for tents, boxes, tables, and so on with little space for passageways. Not to mention the people, this in all made the spaces very clustered and unconformable. In spite of the hazardous circumstances not long after I entered I came cross the first of many Think Tanks I would go on to participate in that evening. For those who aren’t familiar with the term Think Tank, this is a gathering of individual who discuss key issues as they express their interpretation and ideas while maintaining a form of respect in other words One-Mic. I was extremely impressed by this level of respect and the fact that not once did anyone interrupts the other even though their opinions differ substantially.

For the next hour or so I stayed and interviewed all sorts of protesters form the young college students to former Wall Street workers who left the corporate world after years behind the scene experience. When finally I decided to leave and began to exit I came across the main Occupy Wall Street information table, which was the formation of long tables connected to one another and were stacked with information papers regarding the varies movements the protesters represented. This was also the main location were people would come in order to officially join the movement or find out the latest news and upcoming meetings. Behind these tables were individuals who were more than ready to answer basically any question that pertained to the protest. It was then that I was informed about a web site called nycga.net or New York City General Assembly/Occupy Wall Street. This was only a direct effect from me introducing myself as an architecture student. The individual who was kind enough to equip me with such great resource also was quite helpful in educating me perhaps better than any of the previous people I had spoken to earlier. His explanation was part of the common theme I heard all evening, but perhaps he said it best as

“This is a cry for awareness. An awareness we want to…..yes, the people of corporate America to know, but more importantly to the rest of the on-lookers of the 99%. We urge them to join in and take their rights into their hands and not continue to watch as the 1% rolls over use like we have no place in the discussion table of our way of life, our lives. This is supposed to be a democracy, but how can that be if decisions are made based on the influence of money thrown on the laps Politian’s.”

Through the many interviews I conducted Friday afternoon a number of times the political involvement was discussed as a major factor in how things were run in the United States. There were instance in which some suggested that the 99% should stop electing the people who run with the most money that has been influenced by the 1%, but others argued that unfortunately although that would be ideal there isn’t enough awareness for this to accrue, while I argue in that perhaps the person with the most campaign money necessarily be the stringed puppet for lack of a better word.

In all the Occupy Wall Street has a significance value to society. I don’t agree with all of the ideas the protesters represent, yet again they do represent a large amount of things. But I do agree with the general message of fighting for a voice at the decision table and not allowing this injustice to go on a longer. I am very much interested in how this will pan out in the months that follow as we enter winter and wonder if the protesters would be able to withstand the cold weather or will they have to take refuge? Will there clustered two hundred tents be allowed to stay in the park or will they be removed by officials of the city, perhaps more interesting would be the level of involvement of the police. Never the less it was a great experience for me for I have grown to better understand the importance of hearing from both sides of any story in the pursuit of truly becoming a individual who can make his own decisions rather than be influenced by dogma. It is pretty clear to me that these protesters are being the change they wish to see in the world.