NEW YORK, NY–The event was in coordination with Occupy’s Another City is Possible national call to action.  The ride, organized by Time’s-Up, began at 2pm at Union Square south where about 40 cyclists gathered.  We read aloud the Sane Energy Project’s top ten reasons to not build the Spectra pipeline and then set down Broadway, our bikes decorated with windmills and colorful signs reading “Disrupt Dirty Power,” “Protect Our Commons” and “No Gas Pipeline,” and while the sound bike blasted music, we handed out hundreds of fliers to passersby in the village.

We arrived at Pier 54 by 3pm to be joined by a couple dozen more people.  We spread out along the Hudson at the pier with beautiful banners made by Direct Action Painters, costumes, bikes, folks from the neighborhood and from across the river, our partners in fighting the 16-mile pipeline that would originate in Jersey City and end in the West Village, storing fracked gas from the Marcellus Shale directly under the new Whitney Museum and the High Line Park.  Reverend Billy gave us a rousing welcome and handed over the People’s Mic to Denise Katzman from the Sane Energy Project, who described the details of Spectra’s plan and their spotty safety record.

We led a Plus+Brigade Training of mobilization tactics on the pier, forming a mass Wall and Melt, and then marched over to the High Line with songs like, ”Can we get off of fossil fuels?  Oh how I want to be in that number when we get off of fossil fuels!” (to the tune of Saints Go Marching in) and “Get Up! Get Down!  No spectra pipeline in this town!”

Our procession now included a cymbal bicycle wheel, drums, a horn, and the Church of Stop Shopping Gospel Choir leading the songs along the smiling brunch-goers. We arrived at the end of the High Line at Washington and Gansevoort streets, and circled up at the base of the stairwell, police on all sides. Reverend Billy preached while police were dismantling our puppets and banners hanging from above. The choir sang: “It’s gonna rain.  Spectra pipeline, you’re killing this town.  People are angry.  People are proud.  Spectra Pipeline get out of town!”

In a moment of improvisation, after the police foiled our plan for “toxic frack chemicals” to rain down from the High Line onto a group of “unsuspecting West Village gallery-goers,” I set up a tarp behind the gathering and poured the black, yellow and orange paint over my head, as a symbol of the radon, carcinogens and other toxins the spectra pipeline would be releasing into our environment.

Two groups, on bicycles and and on foot, continued onto a garden clean-up and party at La Plaza Cultural in the Lower East Side.  We danced, visited the new Museum of Reclaimed Urban Spaces, chatted with gardeners and ate pizza as the sun went down.

The fight continues!  Let’s keep it vibrant, colorful, visual and loud!

-Monica Hunken-

New York, NY – We support Occupy but worry about violent reactions by protesters to police provocation and physical abuse.We came to the march on a peacekeeping mission. Peace for ALL was our objective. With an image of Gandhi and flashing peace signs, we walked the edges and spread our message of peace. We were constantly smiled at and peace signs were returned by spectators and protesters even a few cops. Photographers loved us.

At one point, we heard the “shame” chant, so we rushed over and put ourselves between protesters and police, who had just violently attacked a demonstrator. Quickly others joined us and we were able to calm the crowd, because it seemed a riot was about to break out.

We heard only violent provocative words from angry protesters, no violent actions. We did witness NYPD abuse.

It’s important that Occupy remain peaceful, for otherwise we fall prey to authoritarian provocation. Please DO NOT PLAY THEIR GAME!

-Matos-

Check out all our May Day coverage here.

This story was originally published on Pitchfork.

Photos by Erez Avissar. Check out more photos on our Facebook page.

New York, NY – Entering Manhattan’s Bryant Park yesterday afternoon felt like walking through my computer screen. The mediated images of Zuccotti Park and other Occupy Wall Street activity I’d experienced through news reports and social media were reproduced perfectly before me, albeit markedly more calm.

Here were more cops and reporters and drummers than I could feasibly count. Here were more camouflage and cargo prints than I’d seen in a single compact area since attending the New York Anarchist Book Fair in 2010. Here was that free library, the Occupy Dessert Kitchen, and copies of The Occupied Wall Street Journal. Not to mention picket signs saying things like “99 PERCENT” and “RISE” and “VOTE SOCIALISM,” among a netherworld of tie-dyed hippies and radicals.

It all came in honor of May Day, for which Occupy Wall Street had helped stage a global General Strike, to get people like me out from behind our digital interfaces and into the streets. It worked.

I came to Bryant Park for a practice session for the Occupy Guitarmy, organized by Occupy’s Music Working Group. At 2 p.m., Tom Morello of Rage Against the Machine was to lead a pack of guitar-equipped protesters down 30 blocks to Union Square. Upon their arrival, at 4 p.m., Union Square would host a concert featuring Dan Deacon, Das Racist, Immortal Technique, Morello with Guitarmy members, and more, interspersed with speakers from various labor and immigration rights groups. Later, at 7 p.m., Le Tigre‘s JD Samson and her band MEN would perform near Wall Street.

But first: the Guitarmy.

Enclaves of musicians practiced by running through the day’s designated protest songs: Woody Guthrie’s “This Land Is Your Land”, Sergio Ortega’s “El Pueblo Unido”, Willie Nile’s “One Guitar”, Morello’s “World Wide Rebel Song”, Florence Reece’s “Which Side Are You On?”, and the traditional “We Shall Not Be Moved”. Throughout the park, photographers seemed to outnumber the several hundred participants. There were banjos, fiddles, ukeleles, saxophones. One pack, a marching band, held horns with signs taped on: “Come Strike With Me,” “Tax the Rich.” I counted at least one Martin Luther King mask, and at least one man distributing a bouquet of pink daisies. Someone was most definitely burning sage.

And then I found the Zombies, a daughter and her mother in pale, blood-streaked face paint. “I represent middle America,” the daughter Zombie said. “Americans are zombies.” She aired her frustrations, already, with May Day. “In other countries they actually shut things down. There are no trains. I had to rollerblade to school in France in the early 90s. This is just entertainment.”

“And they should have had GWAR performing in the streets,” she said, “chopping Obama’s head off.” The man with the pink bouquet delivered her a flower; she ate it. Nearby, a guy asked, “Anyone without an instrument want to make some egg shakers? Egg shakers! Make ‘em here!”

The daughter Zombie, whose named was Shantay, rolled her eyes. “It’s like kindergarten.”

“Last year in Chile, 3,000 students marched and re-enacted ‘Thriller’, protesting for education reform,” she said. “That was a real statement. I don’t know what this is.”

++

But the small, ad hoc group of Occupy Wall Street organizers behind the musical May Day strike had a clear and ultimately well-realized vision of how to keep the movement’s biggest moment in the spotlight since 2011 centered on optimism over chaos and brutality. The Guitarmy practices were largely led by Alphonzo Terrell, 29, and an organizer named Goldi, who wore a bandana around his head and other hippie garb. According to Goldi, the idea for Guitarmy first came from an Occupier named Winn Cola at Zuccotti in October. ”Guitarmy is a direct action and a great way to diffuse tensions with the police,” Goldi said, “Because you can’t arrest a song! Right?”

At 1:30 p.m., Terrell performed the first of many human mic-checks to explain how the march would function: seven color-coded sections were each headed by a designated leader with a pirate-like flag. “The key to victory is staying united with your section,” Terrell said. “We don’t want anyone to get lost or hurt. Or arrested.”

“This is Guitarmy,” he continued. “We are about music, love, and unity.” He warned that many people from the coinciding Direct Action protest were intent on taking the streets, but that Guitarmy should remain on the sidewalks, to avoid confrontation with the police.

Morello finally emerged just before the Guitarmy was set to depart from the park. He told the crowd he’d traveled 3,000 miles; that it was an honor to share the streets and songs. “History is not made by Presidents,” Morello began. “It’s not made by billionaires or bankers, wondering who can be bought.” Within minutes of Morello’s arrival it became clear that one of the Guitarmy’s primary functions would be: travelling Tom Morello photo shoot. And although he seemed slightly confused during the march, Morello was enthusiastic, shaking hands profusely and thanking fans who thanked him.

The marching musical performance soon gave way to more traditional Occupy chants: “We! Are! The 99 Percent!” and “The system! Must die! Hella, hella, occupy!” We’d ventured fewer than ten blocks from Bryant Park when a raging “WHOSE STREETS? OUR STREETS!” broke out. The march took over the width of Fifth Avenue for the remainder of the hour-long trek. At 31st Street, Morello was approached by a friend, who then apologized for disrupting. “Oh,” he said, “no one can hear a note anyway.”

++

That was made up for by Morello’s spirited performance in Union Square, where he took the stage with his makeshift Guitarmy group. Occupy’s Will Gusakov, who stage-managed, noted that having protesters on stage emphasized “an ethos of participation and non-hierarchy” that is intrinsic to the movement, which he hoped the performers would all take on. Morello prefaced “World Wide Rebel Song” with a story about a group of Korean guitar-makers who were fired for unionizing (for whom he’d held a benefit concert). He encouraged the crowd to sing along, noting, “If you can’t remember the words, raise a militant fist in the air, and go ‘na na na’!” The group’s second song was “This Land Is Your Land,” complete with an acknowledgment that Woody Guthrie would have headlined the show, were he still alive.

Next on the bill was Bobby Sanabria, the Latin jazz singer and drummer, after a number of speakers who embodied May Day’s appeal to renew revolutionary spirits broadly. Sanabria encouraged everyone to protest the Grammys’ decision this year to cut 31 categories that “represented diversity,” like Latin jazz, Cajun, and Native American music.

Das Racist followed with fairly straight-ahead performances of Relax‘s “Michael Jackson” and “Rainbow in the Dark” that they cut with May Day shouts. The sound went out towards the end of “Rainbow” but the group continued on with help from a handful of die-hards in the front row. I couldn’t help the thought that a performance of Heems’ anti-authoritative reinterpretation of the Strokes’ “New York City Cops” would have been fitting here.

Dan Deacon somehow successfully controlled a packed Union Square, requesting a circle formation as he usually does in live settings, performing from within the audience. “I know, I don’t look like the most trustworthy person,” he said, encouraging an interpretative dance to “Of the Mountains.” He called it a “Body Mic Check,” which felt appropriate– in an interview last week, Deacon told me, “The first time I saw the mic-check stuff, I was like, ‘Holy shit. That’s exactly what I’d like to do.’”

The sea of picket signs (“Legalize Organize Unionize”) bobbed up and down to the beat of Deacon’s song. He next performed “Truth Rush” and asked the crowd to “part the sea!” for “a Michael Jackson ‘Thriller’-type dance-off.” “Both [sides of the crowd] are explicitly the same,” he said, “It’s important to remember that in life.”

“If I have one goal [at Union Square], it’s to change the way people think about the role of the individual,” Deacon told me last week. He expressed frustration with how media (like political cartoons) often “represent the wealthy as these Goliaths” and the 99% as much smaller people. “It’s a mistake to see your enemy as anything different than yourself,” Deacon said. “These are basic concepts, but they’re often looked over in regards to politics and power.” He said many of the lyrics on his forthcoming record, out by this fall, “are very much anti-corporation or pro-radical environmentalism,” including one “post-civilization” track.

On that note, Deacon said, “It’s insane for people to think we’re not returning to an age of kings, that the powers that be don’t want to go back to being pharaohs, having us build their pyramids. We’re existing in a time that’s post-Declaration of Independence, that’s post-Magna Carta. We exist in a twinkle of an eye of what some consider freedom. People are like, ‘Slavery was abolished.’ No, slavery was just outsourced.”

++

While Morello, Deacon, and Das Racist were the biggest musical draws of the day, it was refreshing to later witness topical sets from Immortal Technique and JD Samson, given the setting. Immortal Technique offered lines like ”capitalism and democracy are not synonymous” and “the U.S. is a better country than the people who are running it.” JD’s set with MEN, later in the evening down at 2 Broadway, was perhaps the day’s most inspiring musical moment. The self-identified “protest band” of “feminists and queers” performed a dance-punk song written about the Occupy movement, “Make Him Pay”, as the crowd emerged on Wall Street. It felt triumphant.

Something I hear a lot as a music writer is “can’t expect every band to be Fugazi,” excusing the perpetual dearth of well-executed political songwriting. But this day served as a reminder that new protest music can still be purposeful. That same sentiment came up earlier in conversation with Shane Patrick, a member of Occupy Wall Street’s press team who helped organize the May Day events. ”As much as the conversation with Occupy was a result of broad populist outrage over economic corruption, and the lack of accountability, so many of these things literally run through the narrative of music,” he said. “Is Occupy doing anything in terms of protest that’s really that distinct of anything Fugazi and Dischord did? Not really. It would be nice if you didn’t have to expect that Fugazi was the only one.”

- Jenn Pelly -

Check out all our May Day coverage here.

New York, NY – On May 1st during the March from Union Square to Wall Street, I decide to leave the march to use the bathroom. After my bathroom break, upon my return I tried to rejoin the march via an opening where the barricades were moveable, a cop stopped me and I said to him, ” I want to rejoin the march.”

“Its closed now,” the cop replied,

“But its clearly an access point and its my constitutional right to join the march, you are violating my 1st amendment by not letting me back into the march,” I said.

The cop replied, “Tell it to your lawyer!”

-Anonymous- 

Check out all our May Day stories here. 

Spring Training, every Friday until Mayday

NEW YORK – I have come to three ‘Spring Training’ marches now—but today [April 20th] was by far the most exciting. The weekly marches on Wall Street have become increasingly well-organized and effective at getting occupiers in front of the stock exchange for the closing bell every Friday.

The marches are designed as a fun way to practice new protest tactics before May Day. The police stop us blocks away from Wall Street when we march in a group, so we have developed different tactics of going “civilian,” breaking into small groups to penetrate the police lines that circle the stock exchange before reforming the protest on the other side. This week, when we began to arrive, there were many occupiers already there who have been occupying the steps to Federal Hall since they got pushed off of Wall Street earlier this week. The police had barricaded the steps and control access to what they officially refer to as the “first amendment rights area.” Seriously, they really call it that. In addition to the NYPD, there were counter terrorism, federal park police and SWAT.

As the crowd swelled the police began making arrests and clearing the sidewalk. The police pushed aggressively and isolated everyone who had just arrived from the group that had been occupying the steps to Federal Hall, arresting at least three. Tension was high, but the crowd calmed before the people’s gong—our response to the closing bell of the stock exchange. We mic checked to the people behind police lines on the barricaded steps and celebrated together before breaking into the familiar chant, “A – Anti – Anti-Capitialista,” this time in the very heart of capital. There were police barricades and lines of officers keeping us apart, but there were a few hundred of us dancing right across from one of the most potent symbols of power; the energy was high.

A mic check broke our chant.

“Ten occupiers are laying down on the sidewalk right now, they know they will be arrested and wish to go peacefully!”

Two weeks ago a group began sleeping on the sidewalk, following the exact specifications for legally sleeping on the sidewalk as a form of protest from the the 2000 U.S. district court decision Metropolitan Council V. Safir. The occupation grew larger each night until last week, when the police started arresting people. The occupation shifted half a block to Federal Hall, which as federal property was beyond the jurisdiction of the NYPD. This was where the “first amendment rights area” had been set up. Direct Action had video cameras in place to film the occupiers laying down in accordance with the law, then immediately getting arrested for it.

“Mic Check! Next week we are going to invite everyone to come lay down!”

It was powerful. The NYPD has tried very hard to prevent us from growing roots anywhere in the city. The last few weeks have been filled with arbitrary arrests, sleepless nights and scant media coverage, but for the first time in a while, it felt like the tide was turning today; it felt like we were winning.

- John Dennehy -

Editor’s note: This is part of series of stories detailing how different occupies are getting ready for May Day. Read what other’s are up to and tell us what’s happening where you are.

Editor’s Note: In the run-up to what promises to be a May Day to remember, we are collecting stories from the people who are pouring their soul into making it happen. Are you involved in planning for May Day in your occupation? Have you been to any of the actions building toward the general strike? Tell us about it! You can find a collection of our May Day stories here.

NEW YORK, NY–Waiting for fellow Occupiers outside of the courthouse at 100 Centre Street in lower Manhattan, Justin Young explained the role of the OWS Street Medics, also known as the Red and Black Cross, and updated us on how they’re preparing for May Day.

Click PLAY to hear Caroline’s interview with OWS Street Medic Justin Young

-Caroline Lewis-

19 September 2011, New York–A group of people, no more than one hundred, had congregated in Zuccotti Park two days before amidst the almost total indifference of people passing by.

No journalists, no television, no microphones—only their voices and faces.

These portraits bear witness to the beginning of Occupy Wall Street in Zuccotti Park. They regard dreamers who believe in an idea.

No one could have imagined that in the space of a few weeks, those involved in Occupy Wall Street would have entered people’s homes all over the world through newspapers and television.

–Daniele Corsini, photographer

View a selection of images on our Flickr page, or the full photo series at Corsini’s website.

NEW YORK, NY–A few hours before I was arrested on the Brooklyn Bridge, I met Nicole in Zuccotti Park. She wore dark blue jeans that stretched across her legs, a grey sweater and a blue and white scarf that hid behind her flowing brown her. It was our first date.

Nicole was handing out flyers with legal advice while saying, “Protest is not a crime.

“I work for a law firm so the legal stuff interests me,” she explained.

When Occupy Wall Street began its march the protest stretched back for many blocks as it crowded onto the sidewalk with barricades and a heavy police presence lining our way. By the time we arrived at the bridge the front of the march was already funneling onto the pedestrian walkway, though only a handful of police stood casually at the entrance to the roadway.

“We’re not taking the bridge?” I said to Nicole in disappointment.

“Doesn’t look that way, I guess they don’t have a permit,” she responded.

“That’s such a letdown; the power of OWS is that it doesn’t ask permission to disagree. There’s hardly any police, we should just take the bridge,” I said.

The crowd bulged at the narrow entrance to the walkway and had begun to fill the street in front.

Without thinking, I stepped away from Nicole and into the growing crowd to start a familiar chant.

“Whose streets?” I yelled.

“Our streets!” the crowd answered.

The chant grew quickly and more people moved into the street at the base of the on ramp. The assertiveness and ambition was back, the crowd was alive. One police officer lazily spoke into a megaphone but was drowned out by the crowd.

I shouted “Take the bridge, take the bridge!” and the crowd immediately and aggressively picked up the refrain. It was infectious. I had lost myself in the moment and briefly forgotten about Nicole. I thought my idea of protest might have been more aggressive than hers, but then she caught my eye, smiled and rushed down from the pedestrian walkway toward me. She grabbed me and put her fist in the air. “Take the bridge” she shouted with the surging crowd. We watched as the group of people closest to the police locked arms. Everyone behind them, including Nicole and I, followed their example. It was loud and tense but it all melted away when the first line took a single step forward, their legs all moving in unison, connected as one solid line at the waist. The police turned their backs and walked ahead. They were leading us onto the bridge, we won! The crowd cheered and rushed up the ramp.

Nicole and I held back a few minutes and helped people from the walkway climb onto the road with us. The crowd was thick and excited, and our hands met so we wouldn’t get separated; it felt so natural. Once the crowd spread into all the lanes and gave us space, neither of us let go. I only noticed her hand still in mine because they began to sweat against each other. Confused motorists, stuck behind us, were honking in support.

“I can’t get arrested,” Nicole told me.

“They can’t arrest everyone. I can’t see the beginning or end of the crowd. There’s no way they can arrest this many people; we already won,” I said.

“Okay, good. This is incredible,” Nicole said, squeezing my hand and looking up at me.

“Yeah. I went to a lot of protests in college, but this is different.” I said.

The crowd stopped suddenly then surged backward, pushing Nicole’s body against mine. We couldn’t see what was happening, but the joy instantly transformed into panic. The chants stopped and people started screaming a few rows in front of us in the all-of-a-sudden-dense-again crowd. “The police are attacking, go back, go back!” they yelled. I put my arms around Nicole and held her tight; her fingers clasped behind my back and pulled me even closer.

As some people from the front pushed back into us, others pushed forward, trying to reach the front line to break the police cordon.

“We have to keep going forward! We have to break through!” a man behind us yelled.

“There’s nowhere to go, people are getting crushed up there!” a woman cried, her voice cracking.

A second man with a calm but firm voice started shouting rhythmically, over and over again, “Sit down! Sit down!”

Most people sat down but there were still others pushing one way or the other and stepping on top of people. Dozens on our left, against the inner side of the bridge, were climbing up the scaffolding to the pedestrian walkway above, trying to escape the crush. It was chaos.

Nicole tucked her head into my arm as I moved my hand across her back. Our bodies moved tighter, her right leg rubbing between mine while my left leg nestled between hers.

“I can’t get arrested,” Nicole repeated, more desperate than before.

“They can’t arrest everyone,” I repeated, almost as sure.

To our left, where the people had been climbing the scaffolding, police pushed in and set up a net. They immediately walked two protesters in handcuffs down the corridor so everyone could see. They were pushing them hard, making them stumble, and almost knocking them on their face. They were sending us a message: You’re next.

The police pushed everyone off the pedestrian walkway and shut down the bridge. The crowd was tense. We were stuck in a police net, hanging above the East River, completely alone, utterly vulnerable. Rumors swilled though the crowd. “The police cleared the airspace,” someone shouted, and we realized: there were no witnesses. All of a sudden taking the bridge seemed a terrible idea.

We waited, and as we waited the fear left and the spirit of the crowd that had locked arms and took the Brooklyn Bridge returned. People started to mic check, mixing rumor and fact, but the tone changed and each message was more defiant than the last. Each time the crowd roared louder than the last.

“5,000 people are watching us on livestream.”

“A crowd is gathering on the Brooklyn side of the bridge, they are waiting for us.”

“10,000 people are watching.”

“The MTA is going on strike in solidarity.”

“25,000 people are watching.”

Even as the minutes dragged into hours and it became clear that the police were in fact going to arrest everyone they had netted, it still felt like victory. Everyone shared what they had, fruit and water passed through the crowd and people called out of work and cancelled dinner plans with borrowed phones.

Nicole and I still held each other. Long after the crowd thinned and the panic passed, our hands were still interlocked when we sat, and our bodies still pressed tight to the other when we stood.

“Mic check: It is an honor and a privilege to be arrested with you all today. Fifty years from now, when you tell your grandkids about this, you can say that you were a soldier in the Battle of the Brooklyn Bridge!” The crowd roared.
Nicole pulled her head out of my arm and we looked into each other’s eyes.

“Best first date ever,” I said.

She giggled. “This is incredible.”

People were still mic checking, still passing around markers so everyone could write the legal number on their arm, but we were isolated from all of that, stuck in our own moment. Our eyes were locked on each other and our faces pulled together, like magnets finding their mate. Our lips touched, and then opened. When we drew back our eyes were staring into each other again but in a different way than before the kiss. I could tell she was smiling though all I saw were her eyes. I could feel my own face stuck in the same pose. We moved together and kissed again, oblivious to the crowd around us.

It began to rain and the sun disappeared behind the clouds, then fell below the horizon. We had been in the police net for over three hours now and I was getting cold. “Let’s go get arrested,” I said.

“I’d love to.” Nicole smiled.

I tapped someone on the shoulder near the police blockade. “Is this the line to get arrested?” I asked.

He laughed. “Yeah,” he said.

There was a separate line for women so Nicole and I shared one last embrace and kissed one last time.
“I’ll wait for you. I’ll wait for you forever,” she said.

A police officer slapped cuffs on my wrist then walked me onto a commandeered MTA bus, and when I looked back, Nicole was gone, on her own bus I presumed. All the police stations and holding cells in Manhattan were already overflowing with protesters, so we got on the Williamsburg Bridge and for the second time that day, I headed to Brooklyn. This time, a prisoner in police custody, I made it. The first two precincts we went to were also filled and we finally stopped at the 90th precinct, which, ironically, I could walk to from my home in Bushwick. We were the third bus in line so we waited for the others to be processed first. For more than three hours we sat uncomfortably, forced to sit at the edge of our seat and lean slightly forward to accommodate the handcuffs digging ever deeper into our wrists as the blood collected in our hands and swelled the skin around the plastic rings. All the while, we took advantage of our captive audience and tried to convert our arresting officers who were acting as our guards now.

“The banks crashed the economy, and when the government bailed them out they used the money to give bonuses to the CEO’s and increased foreclosures against families like your own. When it comes down to it, we are all on the same side. You are the 99% as much as we are,” we told them.

One of the officers, the loudest one, never genuinely responded to our attempts at engagement. He would chuckle and say things like, “I think your dreadlocks are seeping into your brain,” or, “what good are you sitting in handcuffs here, why don’t you just plant a garden or something?”

My arresting officer was much quieter but also much more thoughtful.

“National elections are overwhelmingly decided by who has the most money so they can better spin the narrative in their favor, which gives great power to corporate CEO’s at our expense. The system is broken, and while we may not have all the answers, we need to start creating alternatives, we need to take control over our own lives,” I said.

“You’re right,” he said. “The country is heading in the wrong direction and people need to stand up in order to change it, but I got a job to do. I got a wife and kids so if my CO [commanding officer] tells me to make an arrest, I have to do it. I wish I could be with you guys, but I need this paycheck,” he said.

Finally it was our turn, and the police marched us off the bus and into the station.

Someone yelled my name as I was being walked to my cell.

“Anita?” I stopped, happy to see my friend smiling behind a row of bars next to me. “Hey! You got arrested too huh?”

An officer grabbed my arm and yelled, “Get to your cell!”

I kept forgetting I wasn’t free.

The cells were built for one with a single plank of wood hanging from one wall as a bed, a metal toilet filled with urine and feces and unable to flush, and not much room for anything else. The first thing everyone did was pee. There were five of us, and our urine stirred the thick brown liquid and released an even more pungent odor.

Danny, Craig, Adam and Lucas were my cell mates. We were locked in what was essentially a crowded and dirty bathroom, but it felt like a party. I’ve never felt free as I did when I was handcuffed and forced into a 5 by 8 cell. Given the chance to do it all over, I wouldn’t hesitate a second. But freedom is more than a lack of fear; it’s replacing that with the belief that we can build something better. Though I spent the day inside a police net and then locked in a cage, I saw the beginnings of a community based on altruism, compassion and solidarity, and you can’t lock that up.

Finally, after twelve hours in police custody, we were given court dates and released. It was the early morning and dark and cold outside. Two women were waiting outside to support us and gave everyone coffee and snacks.

My phone rang. “You’re out!” Nicole gushed. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, everything’s fine. I’m in Brooklyn, where are you?” I asked.

“I’m waiting for you in the park.”

I took the subway away from my house and back to the park. The streets of the financial district were deserted and police barricades lined every sidewalk. There was a steady stream of people rising from the subways, returning from jail. It felt like the city was ours.

I ran into Danny and Craig at the edge of the park and we embraced like old friends who hadn’t seen each other in years. Nicole was sitting on a wall with a blanket wrapped over her shoulders. She dropped the blanket and ran toward me, and we embraced like old lovers.

“You must be cold, take this.” She threw the blanket over me. She had enormous energy considering the hour.
Nicole brought us to a group lying on an air mattress. Though it was already crowded beyond what seemed comfortable, they cheerily made space for us. They were all drinking coffee and soon after they got up to welcome others returning from jail, leaving Nicole and I alone in their bed.

We never slept. We barely even talked. We wrapped our arms around each other and touched our lips together. It warmed better than any blanket. A few hours after I was released from jail, the darkness began to fade. On all sides the park was hemmed in by skyscrapers creating an empty shaft of air reaching toward the sky. The sun filtered between the walls of concrete and through the honey locust trees above us, bathing New York City in a new light.

It was the brightest sunrise of my life.

-John Dennehy-

NEW YORK, NY–I have had strange confrontations with Bank of America lately.  In the last 8 days I was arrested twice only on the verge of approaching the Bank, steps away from the unknown possibility. And what was the NYPD working so hard to protect Band of America from? First I was dressed as a clown with a team of merry pranksters who sought to enact a short, harmless skit of pulling down the pants of “unsuspecting executives” to expose ALEC, an organization that allows corporations to draft legislation–which, no surprise, Bank of America is a prominent member.

It was raining and biting cold but the +Brigade Shenanigan team, a newly formed OWS effort of creative resistance, was suiting up in Bryant Park on F29 with bright monochromatic colors and the “executives” scavenging in trash cans for Starbucks cups to look authentic. But our pantsing skit was deterred, because as soon as we tried to cross the street, a police barricade of bodies and scooters lined up alongside us. The Bank of America tower, like the Death Star, loomed in the distance surrounded by police, like clusters of black mussels clasping onto its mammoth shape.

We had the light. There was the flashing white man walk sign taunting us with the rite of passage. Struck by the absurdity of police barring 8 clowns from crossing the street, I was immediately on my hands and knees crawling between their legs. I was promptly lifted up and put in handcuffs. I didn’t want and wasn’t expecting to be arrested. I was in that precious liminal space of free play. I felt like I could do anything.

But corporations have a way of smashing any spark of the unique human spirit rising up. As the crowd looked at me for some words of inspiration, something, I could only muster a call to bravery for the clowns to carry on, and a bad joke: “Why did the clown cross the road?  To get arrested!” As they marched me off into the paddy wagon, I began singing and dancing, “I’m Singing in the Rain!  Just Singing in the rain!  What a glorious feelin!  I’m happy again!” But as I was placed into the wagon alone, watching my comrades carry on valiantly with their march, my ridiculous wet spandex costume began to chill me to the bone at the thought of being a drenched clown in the tombs tonight. That day I was lucky to be released within 5 hours at the precinct, where I was joined by a fellow bicyclist friend, Joe, whose bike was confiscated for “evidence”; a 16 year-old mega force, Mesiah; and another cyclist, Mandolin, who tried to carry a tent on the march.  In my cell, Mesiah and I did yoga and talked about housing rights.  In the other cell, Joe and Mandolin were starting a men’s group to discuss privilege.

My next encounter, I was not so lucky. This time it was a call from the courageous Code Pink on International Women’s Day. The plan was to gather at the Bank of America at Zuccotti Park as super-Sheroes with message-ready breasts for a BUST-ing up the Big Banks action, harking on a thousand year old tradition of women putting their bodies on the front lines. I dressed in a denim jumpsuit with a red scarf on my head, re-appropriating Rosie the Riveter. I met Savitri in the park, that empty park once so full of life.  It was hot with gusts of wind shooting through the trees. She wrote on my arm, “We can do it!” and I  painted “BofA, You can suck it!” across my chest. We began to walk casually into the bank.  Savitri, Medea and Rae, all wearing suits, made it in.  As soon as I stepped up to the doors, the cop locked the door in my face.  Ah yes, the paint was peaking out from my jumpsuit.

Mark and I walked around to the other side to look for another entrance and saw customers slipping out.  People could get out, but no one could get in. Well, at least we shut down Bank of America again. I called Savitri on the inside, who said there were only three of them and they were very vulnerable.  She had a beautiful baby to get to after this.  We waited at the side exit and suddenly Savitri bounded out the door like a leaping gazelle and raced off to safety. Soon after, Rae ran out with the policeman close on her heels. I called out to him, “Hey Officer! Over here!” but he was hot on the pursuit. He grabbed Rae roughly. Mark was quick to de-arrest. The burly policeman grabbed her by the neck and threw her head down into the concrete, all the while she was crying out that she had a neck injury.

As they were detained in the bank lobby, the choir gathered and decided to sing in solidarity, walking along the sidewalk in front of the bank. As we walked past once and I began to circle back, a cop told me I couldn’t sing and had to keep moving. I said that I was moving and was not obstructing traffic. Instantly, the same rough cop threw me over the scaffolding to arrest me, my things spilling out of my bag. I lifted my leg over the scaffolding so as to not have my stomach jammed into metal and try to kick my things from falling into the gutter and another cop snapped, “Stop resisting arrest!” And off the 4 of us were carted away, at the bank manager’s request. I watched the rough cop throw around several woman walking by for no apparent reason.

Maybe it was the full moon, or the solar flares in the sky, but there seemed to be a lot of crazy in the air that day. In the precinct, two men in Mark’s cell seemed dead set on winning the crazy war. A white man in an all black suit skirted over to our side when he was released to go to the bathroom and starting messing with the cops, “How crazy do I have to be?  What do I have to do so you’ll take me to the hospital so I can get a meal?  How CRAZY do I have to be?”  The other, a young black man, was far more sympathetic in his rants.  Screaming bloody murder about injustice and racism. Despite all the machismo, you could understand his anger. We began to sing to try to calm him.  Love, Love Love, all you need is love. When we quieted, he surprised us by calling out, “Love is what I need. Keep singin’, ladies! I need you to sing.” We sang every song we knew.

First they told me I would be there for 15 mins to an hour because I didn’t enter the bank. Four hours later, we were all taken to Central booking, which was packed with men lined up against the wall in chains.  Throughout the whole process, Medea was brought in again and again to try to capture her prints, and they made ageist remarks, like she was so old that her prints were rubbed off or that she was some kind of alien. We said goodbye to Mark, fearful of what he was being led into.  Later we found out there was huge brawl in his cell and he got punched in the back of his head.

Rae and I were led into the women’s cell. Medea’s fingers were still being pushed and prodded. We had about 16 women in there, mostly in their early 20s, all of color, almost all of whom were new mothers too. It was freezing cold, the window open, a fan on. We weren’t allowed to keep our jackets because of the zippers. Rae’s neck had fingerprints on it still and she was sore. We told jokes, arrest and action stories, talked about what ideal brunch we would have. For awhile we tried to huddle on one mat but I couldn’t get warm and fall asleep until hours later, when a kind prostitute offered to cover me with her fur coat and to share her mat. We snuggled tightly and she asked me if I had lice. Said she’d been there 36 hours already, had been working the same streets for 28 years.

They woke up everyone at 5am and said we had to clean up and get ready to go to court. Only 3 women were taken. Later on, everyone felt up to chatting again and they all wanted to hear why we were arrested. They laughed and laughed, couldn’t believe we’d be arrested for protesting a bank, let alone for singing. The women there were smart, knew what was going on in the world, knew all about Bank of America and its foreclosures, its corruption. There was no surprise that corporations are criminals. They were arrested for fighting back against an abusive boyfriend, getting in a screaming match with her boyfriend, bringing in a cigarette to her son in jail, smoking pot, selling fake watches. But none of them were interested in protesting. They agree it has to be done but they can’t do it. They have to work, take care of their babies, survive. They said things have to get really bad so people will get up and do something. How much worse does it have to get?

We waited and waited. Didn’t want to drink the dirty water or the milk or the vacuum packed sandwiches. Finally, after 3pm, our names were called.  We were all charged with criminal trespassing.

It wasn’t until I was sitting in the courthouse next to Rae, when I saw my friends out there, looking tired but smiling supportively, that a rush of anger flooded over me.  The parody of this system.  There we were in this dressed up, fancy court when a foot behind us lay filthy floors covered in cockroaches and a system that has no interest in improving society. Police protect the corporate personhood and never our freedom of speech. There’s no telling what we could be arrested for any more. I can’t gauge actions by the same standards any more. As Spring blossoms, the spirit of the people is heating up again, we’ll be out on the street in big numbers. We will fill those cells so packed, the walls might explode.

-Monica Hunken-

NEW YORK – The one time I visited the occupation in the park, I also wandered down to the exchange and was struck by its pillars crumbling. On Christmas Eve day I visited 60 Wall for the first time. It was absolutely freezing. A woman with a baby was standing on a nearby corner, asking for change. I was taking something to the potluck I read about online. I knew that was happening, so I told her about it and we started talking. It turned out she was homeless, just stopped in to shelter in the Occupy atrium, and hadn’t eaten for three days. She pointed me to the door of the lobby that wasn’t broken.

I wandered in and stood around for just a minute before a young guy sitting pretty far away, all bundled and hooded for the cold snap, spoke up with “Happy New Year’s Eve,” flashing a huge grin. He was hanging out with a guy playing guitar and a bunch of people listening, typing, blowing on their hands. I walked over and when the song ended, started talking to the guy still smiling. Maybe you know him? A super sweet kid named Frankie. He’s just 21 and joined the occupy movement when he was sitting at home watching the march over the Brooklyn Bridge on the news. He said he nudged his little brother, said “Watch this,” then ran out of the house to join.

Frankie and I talked for a while in the atrium. I ended up giving him the food I brought and he took it over to where people were gathering. We hung out for a few hours, first looking up numbers for shelters (and WIC and other assistance) for the woman outside, then we went for a walk so he could show me other OWS sites. We went to SIS–Shipping, Inventory, and Storage. I was a little self-conscious about blundering through OWS admin work or whatever, but it being Christmas Eve and Frankie being so warm and winning, it felt like a minor worry. We met some other people just walking around and then made it to SIS where he introduced me to Nick and Nick. I ended up hanging out with them a little, hearing their stories of getting to New York. One of the Nicks was a Marine vet who’d been passing through on his bicycle and decided to stay. Really nice guys. There was a lot of talk about family and Christmas and a little talk about the frustrations they had with the OWS protocols — mostly telling stories about big personalities that broke rules / caused problems.

After they closed SIS, they took me for pbr at Charlie’s Place, I think it was called. It was a short walk, but very, very good to get out of the cold again. At 60 Wall St. earlier, Frankie and I had taken turns closing the doors on either side of the atrium because the cops kept propping them open. Fucking annoying. I was exhausted at the end of a few hours and can’t even imagine how people who are also staying in shelters, like Frankie,  feel — but even with all of the short, antagonistic bickering I saw, one still peeled off to join for the beer; and one of the Nick’s offered food to another right after a confrontation. The coolest thing was hearing each of them talk, warmed up by beer, about still being deeply committed to the whole, no matter how stupid the problems. I really can’t wait to see these people again.

-Amanda Gill-