I was a teenager when Koch was elected to his first term, and I thought his chutzpah, moxie and general bluster was admirable and probably just what the city needed when the collective morale of New Yorkers bordered on outright despair. Edward I. Koch was bold, he was optimistic, he knew New York was better than its financial crisis and crime statistics.

He lifted our city out of its financial woes, embarked on an ambitious public housing program, made some innovative criminal justice reforms and gave New York its swagger back. When I went off to college in upstate New York in 1980, I felt that I was leaving a city on an upswing, with a mayor who was steering us to a better place.

Then in 1982, Koch overreached, and the Greenwich Village pol set his sights on the Statehouse, a job that required living in upstate New York. He stumbled, making an ill-conceived joke about the sterility of the suburbs, and my college newspaper in Ithaca wisecracked in the headline of its endorsement for governor: “Koch for Mayor.”

The people of upstate and my colleagues on the college newspaper editorial board sent the fish-out-of-New York-harbor-water a message: Stay in the five boroughs, where you belong. Koch went on to re-election in 1985, the same year I returned to the city and became the editor of a weekly newspaper, The West Side Spirit, which not only covered the mayor, but had a weekly political columnist, Dick Oliver, who was one of Koch’s chief antagonists.

Koch, in his third term (there were no term limits then) started collecting lots of enemies and critics. His administration was beset by scandal, from the Parking Violations Bureau mess that led to the suicide of Queens Borough President Donald Manes to the imbroglio over Koch’s close friend, Consumer Affairs Commissioner Bess Myerson, whose romantic life with an alleged mobster led to one of the more bizarre scandals in NYC history.

Like a marriage that goes sour after a decade, Koch’s relationship with the city and its various constituencies curdled in his third term. The African-American community attacked him for his racial insensitivity, and Wilbert Tatum, the publisher of the city’s largest black newspaper, the Amsterdam News, put “Koch Must Resign” on his front page every week. For two years.
I was an eager young journalist, in my mid-20s, who was still awestruck to be covering larger-than-life figures like Koch and his ilk. I decided in 1987, two years before his ill-fated third stab at re-election, to write a long cover story: “Can Koch Make a Comeback?”

Unintentionally, Koch taught me one of my most valuable journalism lessons when he refused to grant me an interview because my newspaper— particularly columnist Dick Oliver—had continuously bashed him.

Undeterred, I did a “write around,” interviewing more than 25 people in the administration and in the New York punditocracy, and it became one of my proudest pieces of journalism: a balanced and thoroughly reported picture of a once-mighty mayor on the ropes and hanging on for dear life.
In 1989, David Dinkins dethroned Koch in the primary and unceremoniously sent him back to private life.

In the following years, when well-wishers on the street told Koch they missed him, he would reply: “The people have spoken. And now they must be punished.”

One year after he left office, I decided to write another profile of Koch. My last question in that interview was a throwaway line: “So now that you have all this free time, how do you spend it?”

Koch replied: “I go to the movies two or three times a week.”

The next morning, I phoned Koch.

“Hey, Ed,” I said, “how would you like to be the West Side Spirit’s movie reviewer?”

“What would you pay?” Koch replied.

“How about $50 a week?” I said sheepishly, knowing that I was already committing a high percentage of my weekly freelance budget.

“Fifty dollars a week?! I wouldn’t cross the street for $50 a week!”

“But we’re a small paper,” I said plaintively.

“Well, call me when you get bigger,” he said and then dropped the receiver.

The Spirit had recently become part of a chain of five weeklies in Manhattan, Queens, the Bronx and the Hamptons. I phoned each publisher about my idea, asked them to contribute $50 per week for a syndicated movie column—and presto, a critic was born.

“How about $250?” I offered the next day.

“Fine,” he said. “I’ll start today. But I have some ground rules: I don’t do openings. I don’t do cinematography. I just tell the reader whether the movie is worth the price of admission.”

For the next 23 years, Edward I. Koch reviewed a movie or two each week, with his trademark + or –, symbolizing his thumbs-up or thumbs-down for the everyman’s film experience.

One night a few months after he started, a friend called to tell me he saw Koch on the Johnny Carson show saying he had seven jobs in his post-mayoralty career but his favorite one was writing reviews for a chain of weekly newspapers.

Now that we all mourn the loss of a colorful New Yorker and a man who relished being called Hizzoner, I take some comfort that a young editor’s gimmicky idea to grab attention in a tough media town gave Koch some joy.

If they serve popcorn in heaven, I hope Koch has found his seat and is taking mental notes on the show unfolding before him.

This time, perhaps he’ll notice the cinematography.

Tom Allon, a 2013 candidate for New York City mayor, is the former editor and publisher of this newspaper.

The tricky Brooklyn Bridge - photo by PeterKellyStudios

Don’t forget your swimmies.

Comptroller John C. Liu said yesterday that after a 2009-10 city audit on the safety of its bridges, the Department of Transportation still has yet to make some obligatory repairs. And considering bridges can already be somewhat eerie, that’s a bit disconcerting.

This audit, performed by the Audit Bureau, found that, of 122 “Red Flag” defects, which are dangerous defects and must be fixed within six weeks of DOT notification, 71 were not acted upon in time and, furthermore, were not being monitored for further deterioration.

The DOT did act quickly on all but one of 112 Prompt Interim Actions after the initial report, which are defects deemed very dangerous and require remediation within 24 hours, but Comptroller Liu’s statements, over two years later, do make one think: On which New York bridges should I hold my breath?

A new April 2012 list was released with bridge-safety overall “ratings” and the DOT deems that any rating below a five on total scale of seven denotes a “deficiency” in bridge safety. Furthermore, in 2009, Crown Point Bridge, a pass between northeast New York and Vermont, was deemed too unsafe and destroyed with a 3.375 rating.

Below, based on this consensus, are New York’s most dangerous bridges:

• Triborough Bridge on Randall’s Island, crossing over the FDR – 2.89 rating
• Brooklyn Bridge crossing over I-278 Brooklyn-Queens Expressway – 2.94 rating
• Brooklyn Bridge crossing over the FDR at Pearl – 3.78 rating
• Part of the FDR crossing over South Street – 3.73 rating
• Part of the 11th avenue Viaduct crossing over the Long Island Railroad West – 3.75 rating

These bridges, although not all major overpasses, and not all named, are consistently deteriorating, so hopefully Comptroller Liu’s words will hold some weight in the eyes of the DOT, and we don’t all re-enact an Indiana Jones scene.

Don’t look down.

NADLER CALLS FOR FULL INVESTIGATION OF NYPD CONDUCT ON OWS

Jerrold Nadler, congressman and Occupy Wall Street supporter, is asking for a full investigation of law enforcements conduct toward peaceful protestors and media persons at Zuccotti Park and the Brooklyn Bridge march.  In a letter to the Attorney General, Nadler insists that on several occasions “recordings and videos were made at the scene that raise sufficient concern warranting a federal investigation of whether there was in fact police misconduct in violation of federal law, and whether these actions were taken to prevent OWS protestors from exercising their First Amendment rights.”

Nadler also claims that aggressive actions were taken to “block journalists from reporting on the incident.”  Nadler writes, “The NYPD forced journalists to leave Zuccotti Park, prevented members of the credentialed press from being present during the eviction, and used intimidation and physical force to prevent reporters and photographers from carrying out their journalistic functions. Many of those arrested were not charged with any offenses,” begging the question of why they were arrested in the first place.  “Additionally, the City reportedly closed the airspace above the area in order to prevent news helicopters from recording the actions.”

Congressman, Nadler, has asked for a timely investigation given the severity of the possibility of infringement on protestor’s constitutional rights.  The Attorney General is specifically being asked to “determine whether these actions constituted a deprivation of rights under color of law” and if so, to take prompt action.

Aug. 23: ANONYMOUS, the hacker organization, endorses #occupywallstreet with a video promoting the upcoming Sept. 17 occupation. Until now, the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) movement was merely talk initiated by Adbusters, an anti-consumerist, not-for-profit organization out of Canada.

Sept. 17:  Zuccotti Park, formerly referred to as Liberty Plaza Park, is “liberated” and occupied by protesters from across the country. Socialists, communists and anarchists are among the protesters. OWS organizers say they have no single demand but rather wish to call attention to the anger and discontentment of their peers over corporate power and the wide gap in wealth distribution, among other issues. Actress Roseanne Barr, rappers Lupe Fiasco and Immortal Technique all speak at the inaugural General Assembly.

Sept. 24: During a march of approximately 500 people toward Union Square, the New York Police Department (NYPD) kettle a group of protesters using orange mesh nets. Roughly 80 are arrested.

In the hours and days following the march, video footage of NYPD officer Anthony Bologna pepper-spraying three women is circulated widely on the Internet. The video garners mainstream coverage by major news organizations of the OWS movement.

Sept. 30: As Occupy movements sprout up across the country (Occupy Boston, Occupy Chicago and Occupy San Francisco are a few of the largest, among many more) a rumor spreads that the band Radiohead will play an acoustic set at Zuccotti Park. Thousands of people flock to the park, despite numerous denials from a spokesperson for Radiohead and OWS. Ultimately it turns out to be a hoax, but media coverage increases.

Oct. 3: During a planned march over the Brooklyn Bridge, over 700 people are reportedly arrested by the NYPD.

Oct. 5:  Many unions and political organizations, including TWU, 1199SEIU and MoveOn.org, officially endorse OWS with a rally and march that starts in Foley Square. Over 20,000 people reportedly attend the rally. Later that evening, several protesters are arrested as they charge a barricade on Wall Street.

Oct. 10: Celebrities such as Kanye West, Russell Simmons visit Zuccotti Park. The Occupy movement is now using Meetupcom as a platform and there are over 1,300 occupations around the world.

Oct. 14: Brookfield Office Properties, the owners of Zuccotti Park, attempts to clear the park by announcing that they and the NYPD will be performing a cleaning of the park at 7 a.m. the next morning. Protesters spend the day cleaning the park themselves, MoveOn.org gathers more than 150,000 signatures on a petition asking Bloomberg not to allow their eviction and, by 6 a.m., with no response from either the city or Brookfield Properties, an estimated 5,000 people gather in Zuccotti Park to prevent the clearing of the park. At the last minute, Brookfield rescinds their request for cleaning as well as their request for NYPD support in removing the protesters.

PHOTOS BY: Gail Zawacki, Brennan Cavanaugh, Gail Zawacki, Jeremiah's s Vanishing New York, Alex Fradkin, Brennan Cavanaugh, Meetup.com, Brennan Cavanaugh, Cody Swanson

A participant’s critique of Occupy Wall Street on Day 2

By Fritz Tucker

New York City’s Financial District, notorious for devious deals that crash economies, has witnessed a more harmonious set of transactions since Sept. 17. Thousands of people have come together here to share in a more democratic, dialogic and egalitarian cultural exchange than is ordinarily experienced in our society.

Occupy Wall Street (OWS) represents humanity’s potential for sudden radical change. The movement, however, suffers from severe limitations that, if not dealt with, will be the movement’s demise. OWS is structurally incapable of organizing multitudes of people with myriad political agendas and has therefore struggled to articulate a basic set of principles, failed to come up with a single demand and has no way of putting into action anything more complex than basic human functions: sleeping, eating, talking and walking through the streets of Manhattan.

On Day 2, I attended the movement’s General Assembly, a meeting advertised as a leaderless, democratic forum where everybody present could participate in discussion and decide upon a plan of action. OWS however, is not the leaderless utopia it pretends to be. A core group of occupiers established the General Assembly’s process, elected themselves “facilitators” and used this power to define the terms of debate.

The main debate that night was whether to march on Wall Street in the morning. I, another young man from New York City and an older Arab professor made speeches about the need to clearly define our movement and build it in Zuccotti Park. The three of us stressed Wall Street’s insignificance to the world financial system, a fact unknown by the out-of-towners who were set on occupying that famous block. Our speeches caused people to clap and cheer, an unusual deviation from the General Assembly’s rule of expressing agreement by raising one’s hands and wiggling one’s fingers.

Whenever a plan of action didn’t conform to the facilitators’ wishes, they simply refused to put the proposal to a vote. When somebody made a particularly popular speech that the facilitators didn’t like, they reminded the crowd that each member was an autonomous individual and should act accordingly. When the leaders gave speeches, however, they stressed the importance of unity. Upon failing to rile up the crowd with rational, well-articulated arguments, the facilitators led group chants.

In spite of this manipulation, the majority of those present clearly were not in favor of marching on Wall Street. The night ended in a facilitator-led vote that undermined any sense of unity in the group, even though the need for unity was the only thing practically everyone agreed upon. Those who wanted to occupy Wall Street the next morning could march, while those who wanted to remain in Zuccotti Park could stay.

The next morning, a few hundred people marched on Wall Street. When the marchers returned to Zuccotti Park, they vacillated between anger at the injustice of the police, who had arrested six of their comrades, and elation that these arrests had brought them media attention. The thing they were most proud of, however, was the rumor that the bell of the New York Stock Exchange had rung at 9:31. One marcher bellowed that nobody could tell him his friends had been arrested for nothing—together they had disrupted the financial system, if only for a minute.

With the current state of the people’s movement, America is in for a long winter.

Fritz Tucker is a writer, activist, theorist and political organizer. A Brooklyn native and resident, he has participated in and written about people’s movements in the U.S. and Nepal. He blogs at fritztucker.blogspot.com. (Disclaimer: He is not speaking for the Occupy Wall St. movement as an official spokesperson but is offering a personal perspective.)

American Autumn Part 2: Full Length 

American Autumn Pt. 2

Occupy Wall Street: Organizing the Movement

By Fritz Tucker

Spectacle and Structure

The people’s movement grows every week, the number of participants peaking on the weekends. At the same time, the movement’s largest organization weakens, rendering the movement vulnerable to being co-opted by those who are better organized.

As of October 8, the New York City General Assembly, the purportedly democratic body of Occupy Wall Street, barely functions as a decision-making mechanism. The NYC-GA has been reduced to a “people’s microphone” for public announcements of the decisions made by “working groups,” decisions which are also posted on public bulletin boards and on the internet. So why go through all the verbal strain? The NYC-GA is one of the main attractions of the Occupy Wall Street spectacle.

And what a spectacle it is! Hourly marches; slogan chanting; free food; celebrity cameos; literature tables; the people’s microphone; the people’s library; signs and banners trumpeting everything from the end of racism to the second coming of Christ; all to the ceaseless beating of a hundred drums.  A tourist unable to read the signs or understand the chants might think that the Occupiers’ main concern is a lack of public festivals, not that our society subjugates the needs of the many to the whims of the few.

As I pointed out in “American Autumn Part One,” the New York City General Assembly is structurally incapable of dealing with multitudes of people with myriad political agendas. The consensus method used by Occupy Wall Street circumvents this diversity by atomizing the movement into tiny groups and friendship circles that ostensibly agree on everything—or at least agree to comply with the desires of the most charismatic, well-connected group members.  There are few well-known historical examples of an influential organization utilizing the consensus method.  Even a relatively small, unified group of people wields more power, in the long run, than a massive, unorganized movement.

A democratic General Assembly would be the most just way to accommodate diversity while maintaining unity.  In the absence of this, the competing organizations set to dictate the avowedly leaderless movement’s policies and goals are as follows:

The Working Groups

Because it is virtually impossible for the General Assembly—which consists of hundreds, sometimes thousands of people—to reach a consensus, everything has been delegated from day one to smaller “working groups.” Most of the hardcore occupiers—those who have spent multiple days and nights in the park—belong to one or more working group.

Unfortunately, these working groups also use the consensus model.  On Saturday, October 8, I spoke with a member of the Press Working Group.  He said that, with twenty to thirty people, the working groups were becoming too big and were finding it difficult to forge consensus.  A group that has trouble coordinating the actions of thirty people is unlikely to provide the model for an alternative society, or even influence highly structured institutions like Bank of America—which has over a quarter million employees—and the US government. .  The operations of these establishments, however, might be temporarily disrupted by the mobilization of millions of unorganized people performing simple acts in unison, like marching.

This appears to be the dominant rationale of the Direct Action Committee.

The Direct Action Committee

The Direct Action Committee is the major player of Occupy Wall Street.  The leaders of the Direct Action Committee are, for the most part, the original organizers of Occupy Wall Street: members of Anonymous, Adbusters and other full-time activists.  These people originally led the General Assembly, and used it to mobilize hundreds of people on marches during the movement’s initial weeks. Now that thousands of New Yorkers gather in downtown Manhattan to march daily, the Direct Action Committee no longer spends countless hours in the General Assembly convincing everyone to consent to these daily marches. 

The marches are completely symbolic, calculated to garner the most attention possible for the least amount of work and thought afforded.  The clearest example of the Direct Action Committee’s modus operandi is the fiasco at the Brooklyn Bridge.  On October 1, The Direct Action Committee led seven-hundred marchers onto the roadway of the Brooklyn Bridge.  Shortly after reaching the roadway, the marchers were stopped by the NYPD.  A police officer with a megaphone shouted to the leaders of the march that, “if you refuse to leave, you will be placed under arrest.”  His voice was easily audible to the march’s leaders, even over the chants of “Take the bridge!  Take the bridge!”

According to a witness who saw the events from the bridge’s walkway—and confirmed by this police video: http://www.youtube.com/nypd#p/a/u/1/BYfti1PeDmA—the leaders of the march did not solicit a group decision on whether or not to continue the march in the face of this threat.  In fact, the march’s leaders did not even exercise their human microphone to inform the marchers that their arrest was imminent.  Instead, the leaders changed the chant to, “Show me what democracy looks like!  This is what democracy looks like!” and led the march onto the bridge’s roadway, allowing the police to carry out what looked like—judging from the dozens of buses from Riker’s Island—a preplanned mass arrest, one of the largest in American history.

This was a poor decision for several reasons.  First, this action exposed the marchers to potentially serious physical danger.  Although the NYPD exercised uncharacteristic restraint, the safety of the marchers was left to the discretion and caprice of the individual officers—not to mention the additional risks that go with occupying a bridge.  Second, it subjected everyone involved, including those who did not self-identify as “arrestable,” to the criminal justice system.  Third, it sent a message that Occupy Wall Street’s leaders—predominantly middle-class white men—are not sensitive to the challenges that involuntary arrest poses to a significant portion of the 99%: those with young children, unsympathetic employers, questionable immigration status, arrest warrants, or a reasonable fear of the police.  Finally, the strategic occupation of the oppressive forces represented by the Brooklyn Bridge proved mostly to annoy middle-class inter-borough commuters. 

This action did result in generating more attention and greater interest in the movement.  For all its faults, the Direct Action Committee’s mobilization of the populous is more participatory than the progressive movement that elected Obama.  In 2008, most progressives seemed to believe that America’s representational democracy could be reformed from the inside, through the election of the right people.  Now these same progressives are thoroughly disillusioned by our nation’s politics and strive to control their collective destiny through united action.  Every day the Occupy Wall Street movement continues, more people dream of a radically different world and make the social networks necessary—if not sufficient—to create it.

If the Occupy Wall Street movement fails to transform these networks into participatory democratic structures that can challenge the hierarchal institutions that led us into financial crises and endless wars, people will likely settle with voting for the “lesser of two evils” every couple of years, an act that bears a greater resemblance to democracy than much of what goes on at Occupy Wall Street.

Organized Labor

Many people only began to take Occupy Wall Street seriously when the labor unions joined the movement.  Labor unions control the machines and tools that are modern society’s vital organs.  Every day, labor unions make the City run smoothly; and on any day, they can choose to stop. This power—kinetic and potential—makes labor organized in its current form capable of raising the standard of living for “the 99%.

Similar to the working groups at Occupy Wall Street, however, the current organization of labor unions is incapable of shifting the paradigm to one in which there is no capital and no class differences. The hierarchal structure of labor unions provides the unity that Occupy Wall Street’s working groups lack.

American labor unions are organized similarly to bourgeois parties and corporations. Laborers elect union officials, who monopolize the organization’s administrative life. Part of this administrative work entails giving orders to the laborers, who do the work that gives the raw material its social value.  At the end of the day, the laborers have the fruits of their labor taken from them and divided primarily among the company’s owners, secondly among the union leadership, and lastly back among themselves. 

Unions keep in check owners who try to disrupt this division of profits.  Union leaders who disrupt this dialectic are kept in check by company owners, or are recalled by union members.  Union members who disrupt this dialectic can be fired either by their union leaders or their company’s owners.  In short, the hierarchy is entrenched.

If Occupy Wall Street is ever to create a world free from oppression—instead of merely mitigating the pain of the oppressed—radical elements within the labor unions must cooperate with radical elements within Occupy Wall Street and form the democratic organizations that are necessary to bring about an ever more participatory, dialogic, democratic, egalitarian society.

The Democratic Party

The power of the Democratic Party to co-opt the Occupy Wall Street movement should not be underestimated. The Democrats hold the nation’s executive branch, as well as roughly half the legislative branch. Despite epitomizing the status quo, to millions of Americans the Democratic Party represents progressivism—particularly when compared to the Republicans. Until a viable alternative emerges, the Democratic Party will be the organization most capable of benefiting from the progressive outcry of the Occupy Wall Street movement.

Since the Democratic Party is allowing the Occupy Wall Street movement to continue, one might conclude that the Democratic Party does not feel threatened by Occupy Wall Street.  It may even bank on the movement’s power to mobilize the masses to counter the Tea Party, gain control of the House of Representatives, and maintain the Presidency.

This theory is bolstered by Mayor Bloomberg’s tacit support of Occupy Wall Street, and President Obama’s recent acknowledgement of the “broad-based frustration about how our financial system works.” Rather than proposing a plan to end capitalism, Obama proposed “getting back to old-fashioned American values,” like “put(ting) in place financial rules that protect the American people.” During his speech he offered no criticisms of Occupy Wall Street, but did lambaste the Republicans for halting the progress of the Dodd-Frank Act.

Whatever their rationale, the Democrats will most likely wait to see how winter deals with the American Autumn.  If Occupy Wall Street can resolve its structural shortcomings and last through the winter without its core members succumbing to frostbite, the Democrats may realize they’ve been playing with fire.