Day in the Life of the Square

“THIS IS A SIGN”

—Written on a sign in Zuccotti Park

Morning

Administrative life at Occupy Wall Street began not at Zuccotti Park, but at the large atrium located at 60 Wall Street (where the group that created this book held its meetings). There, coordinators from the movement’s various working groups met daily, and delivered reports on ongoing initiatives, discussed proposals, and brainstormed solutions. At an October 31 morning meeting, for example, the question of how to prepare the encampment for winter weather topped the meeting agenda, followed by discussion concerning the newly-formed Spokes Council and unflattering reports about the General Assembly appearing in the media.

Meanwhile, back at the encampment in Zuccotti, the various operations that kept the camp functioning were already underway. Breakfast was prepared in the People’s Kitchen, starting at about 6 am, and was ready to eat about an hor later. While mealtimes became more tightly defined during the occupation’s last three weeks, a steady stream of donations from local establishments, including pizza parlors and Indian restaurants, as well as food from OWS supporters who had, on their own initiative, prepared dishes in their homes, ensured that those wishing to eat could find food at almost any time of day. As the morning got going, the People’s Library began receiving visits, as did the Information Desks at either end of the park, with locals and tourists stopping to talk to protesters.

On an average day, Daniel Levine arrived at Occupy Wall Street at around 10 or 11 a.m., depending on whether he had to attend one of the two college classes in which he was enrolled. His routine was simple—he would get coffee from one of the vendors around the park, and then go to the Information Desk, From that point on, he would answer questions from passersby. When there was a lull at the desk, he would read.

Lunch, like breakfast, was a freeform affair, with volunteers whisking vegetarian food on trays around the camp to members of working groups operating continually throughout the day. The staff at the Information Desk were one such group, and, sometimes, Dan availed himslef of this service. However, by his account, when he was in the mood for meat, he took a break from working at the desk and turned to the Halal trucks parked around the outside of the square. Indeed, over the course of Dan’s time at the occupation—53 days, he estimated—he had availed himself of this latter option often enough to be able to offer advice on which were the best trucks to patronize. The truck on the south edge of the park, he suggested, produced the better food, but another one, located on the other side of Broadway, was cheaper.

Afternoon

The period from noon till 2 p.m. represented the first of the two, two-hour windows of time during which the drummers of PULSE could play, according to an agreement that they had made with the General Assembly. Drumming, in due course, filled the air, most especially along the western end of the park. Nearby, Hermes, an 18-year-old native of Mobile, Alabama would be seated at a small table along the southernmost walkway, passing out leaflets containing information about the economic ills faced by the world. His typical day consisted of conversing with passersby and exchanging ideas for hour after hour, until he could no longer make the effort, at which point he would go to bed.

By way of contrast, afternoons for Patricia, a participant in the Direct Action working group , usually meant leaving not just her desk, but Zuccotti Park altogther—typically groups like the one she worked in held their meetings either in the nearby atrium of 60 Wall Street or at Charlotte’s Place, a gathering space operated by Trinity Wall Street, an Episcopal parish, several blocks away from the park. Usually Patricia was busy at these planning meetings until around 7 p.m., when she would return to the square in time to attend the evening’s General Assembly. In the meantime, PULSE thundered its way through the second of its alloted two-hour drumming sessions, which stretched from 4 till 6 p.m. though, as many occupiers drily noted, it often overran so that a barrage of percussion competed with the General Assembly’s mic checks.

For a short period in early November, the GA twitter-reporter DiceyTroop, found himself between jobs. During this time, his afternoon routine was much like Patricia’s: at 2 p.m., he usually tried to attend the Direction Action working group meetings in 60 Wall Street, followed at 4 p.m. by the Facilitation working group’s meeting, followed in turn at 6 p.m. by a meeting of the Structure working group—a group that achieved particular importance within the Occupy movement from late October on, as it was in this group that the Spokes Council took shape. By the time this meeting was over it was, once again, time for General Assembly.

Evening

Dinner time in Zuccotti commenced, as a rule, around 6pm, with cooked, mostly vegetarian fare coming out of the People’s Kitchen. Notwithstanding the more-or-less permanent presence of food in the Occupy camp, dinner was an important occasion for the occupiers, and, when the Kitchen faced delays, occupiers often got testy. On November 8th, for instance, Rich, a military veteran working security for the People’s Kitchen who was responsible for ensuring that only authorized persons entered the area where the food was being prepared, found himself in an altercation with a kitchen volunteer as a result of frustration on the part of hungry occupiers. On that day, Rich was standing at the entrance to the kitchen, where he felt he needed to be if he was to prevent anyone unauthorized from entering. However this meant he could not avoid also obstructing kitchen volunteers. Tensions were already high: 6 p.m had passed, the food the kitchen had been expecting had not arrived yet (no one knew why), and occupiers waiting in the food line were growing impatient. Water, too, was in short supply. Rich and an anonymous kitchen worker became invloved in a tense stand off—the worker because he considdered Rich to be the in the way and refusing to move, Rich because he felt hounded by the worker, and believed he needed to stand where he was in order to properly do his job. Ultimately, the pair were forced to turn to a mediator, who settled the argument, but not without some lingering resentment.

The General Assembly generally started at around 7pm, though sometimes earlier. When it ended was another matter— the consensus process on which the GA operated was one that, at times, required lengthy negotiation between a participants who had seriously divergent opinions concerning a given measure. This was especially likely if any GA attendee placed a block on a proposal, though this happened only rarely. Meetings would often stretch beyond the four hour maximum allocated to them so that only the hardiest of attendees were present at their end.

As Hermes’ recollections suggest, some of Occupy Wall Street’s activities camp could not be neatly circumscribed by a particular period. Protest sign-making and other artistc endeavors took place pretty much at any time . Speakers seeking a crowd showed up throughout the day. The media center operated for long hours, the medical center was open all the time, and the long, byzantine process of resolving the legal situations of arrested OWS protesters could drag on over several days. But despite all this, the extent to which life in the park had a predictable schedule and rhythm was remarkable.

Night

As the evening wore on, depending on what sorts of protests had taken place that day, any number of Occupy Wall Street protesters might be busy at various sites across the city—busy, that is, getting released from police precincts, where they were met by OWS Legal working group-organized jail support teams.

At Zuccotti Park, meanwhile, occupiers chatted in the square or, as DiceyTroop sometimes did after finishing his tweeting of the General Assembly, might head over to a nearby bar or coffee shop—“where the real work gets done”, as he put it—to discuss and plan. For those remaining in the park, one final meal was sometimes available: on many nights, an OWS supporter came around at 11 p.m. with vegan food for anyone who wanted it.

Fittingly, perhaps, given the centrality it assumed in the public image of the Occupy encampment, the People’s Library typically operated late, staying open 2 or 3 in the morning, at which time Bill Scott, a professor of English spending his sabbatical as one of the Library’s custodians, could at last bed down, curling up in his sleeping bag among the books as a means of safeguarding them.

Dan Levine typically stayed seated behind Info Desk East until even later—sometimes, he got on the subway back to Brooklyn as late as 5 a.m. But, according to him, these were not dead hours for the movement, even if most occupiers, and most certainly the public that streamed by during the day, were fast asleep. Late at night was when the truly interested, and interesting,individuals approached his desk. It was then that he felt like the concierge at a hotel, he said, listening to the stories people tell at odd hours of the night, something this “lover of stories” was happy to do.