Susan Henshaw Jones has revitalized the South Street Seaport Museum

By Ashley Welch

Susan Henshaw Jones had her work cut out for her when she became the president of the South Street Seaport Museum in the fall of 2011.

Earlier that year, financial struggles forced the maritime museum to lay off most of its staff and shut down. Jones, the Ronay Menschel director of the Museum of the City of New York, which took over the South Street Seaport Museum on an interim basis, was charged with the task of revitalizing the deteriorating museum.

Since then, the museum has reopened with a mix of historical and contemporary exhibitions, from installations featuring the former fisherman life of the area to photographs of Occupy Wall Street. The museum also offers an education program for preschoolers and grade-school children, in which 15,000 students have participated.

For Jones, the preservation of the 11 vessels that make up the Seaport fleet was one of the most difficult aspects of taking on the job. Before she assumed leadership of the museum, all 11 boats were closed to the public. Since then, two have reopened, with one, the Pioneer, running as a sailing vessel over the summer.

Yet, nothing could prepare Jones for the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy.

“Sandy was the biggest and most unexpected of challenges we have faced,” she said.

The storm left 5 to 7 feet of water in each of the museum buildings. In addition, all of the mechanical and electrical systems on Schermerhorn Row, a block of six historic counting houses built in the 1800s, were made inoperable and will need to be replaced, something that has hindered the museum’s ability to fully reopen. Currently, the museum is only accessible by stairs.

“We will be without elevators, escalators, and permanent heat and air conditioning for some time to come,” Jones said.

The ships, however, made it through Sandy just fine.

“They rode out the storm beautifully,” she said.

Sandy was just one of the many obstacles Jones has seen the Seaport Museum face over time. She started her career in the John Lindsay administration in the 1970s, when she worked on the affairs of the museum during her time at the Mayor’s office of Lower Manhattan Development. It was then when she developed a strong connection to the neighborhood and museum.

“Those days made me believe in the unique mission of the Seaport Museum,” she said.
When asked about the future of the Seaport Museum, Jones was hesitant to give details, saying that the agreement with the New York City Economic Development Corporation and New York City Department of Cultural Affairs will conclude in April 2013 and “we will have to see about the future then.” But she remained hopeful that it will remain an important cultural institution in the city.

“The Seaport and City Museum missions are very much compatible,” she said, “and with strong city and community support, the Seaport Museum has the potential to be a strong anchor and key institution in the Seaport district and for the City. After all, our greatness as a city is very much based on its past as a seaport.”

An offshoot of Occupy Wall Street is raising money to help alleviate consumer debt.

By Caroline Lewis

“Whoa, did you see that?” asked Annie Spencer, a professor at Hunter College and a member of the Occupy group Strike Debt. “The live ticker on the Rolling Jubilee website just crossed $200,000 being raised.” That was enough to purchase and abolish more than $4 million of debt.

It was hours before “The People’s Bailout,” a live fundraising extravaganza that would kick off the Rolling Jubilee at Le Poisson Rouge in the West Village last Thursday, with help from a slew of comedians and alternative music icons.

Thanks, in part, to some unlikely praise from mainstream financial commentators, Strike Debt had already far surpassed their initial goal of raising $50,000.

The Rolling Jubilee is a project designed to put Occupiers in the same speculative secondary debt market as professional debt collectors. They will buy debt from banks for pennies on the dollar, but instead of collecting it, abolish it.

By Monday, the ticker on the group’s website counted more than $350,000 in donations, all of which will go toward reducing the amount owed by some unsuspecting debt-strapped Americans.
Slate’s Matthew Yglesias briefly wonders, “Why is this a better idea than just giving money to poor people?” before admitting that “almost all charitable undertakings are organized around some kind of gimmick.”

“We don’t like the idea of framing the debtor as someone who needs charity,” said Spencer, whose red felt square pinned to her clothing identified her as a member of the movement. “The reality is that three quarters of Americans are in debt of some kind, and increasing numbers of people go into debt for meeting basic needs.”

Praises for the Rolling Jubilee have rightly been qualified by the observation that this endeavor probably won’t make a dent in America’s $11 trillion of debt.

In fact, the group can’t even promise to erase an entire family’s debt.

“This first debt purchase of over $100,000 of medical debt [constitutes] roughly 80 different people,” said Thomas Gokey, who helped execute the group’s successful test run.

That’s because debt is purchased in bundles of defaulted accounts from banks for a fraction of what is owed. The professionals then aggressively seek payment for the full amount from individual debtors. Those in the red don’t have to pay back much for debt collectors to turn a profit.

So what has this foray into the debt market revealed so far? For one thing, there’s a lot more than money at stake. “You’re not just buying their debt,” said Gokey of the accounts purchased. “You’re buying their social security number.”

The social security number comes with the debtor’s last known address and a handful of other information.

“It’s not a lot in the context of debt collection, because they’re not getting any of the documentation that would support their claim that this is how much is owed and it’s for this account and it’s with this company,” said Susan Chin, a staff attorney with the Neighborhood Economic Development Advocacy Project (NEDAP).

Chin said debtors are often unaware that they can request verification on claims from debt collectors, and that collectors must stop seeking payment on accounts that cannot be verified.
“In general, there’s not a lot of oversight right now of the debt buyer industry,” Chin said. This may change starting next year. Last month, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau announced plans to police debt collection agencies starting in January 2013.

Some have pointed out the peculiarities of the debt market as limitations of the Rolling Jubilee. For instance, certain kinds of debt—such as mortgages and student debt—are more difficult to abolish due to government protections.

The group’s website counters, “These peculiarities are part of the scandal that we are trying to highlight.”

By Caroline Lewis

A “postmodern grassroots variety show” may sound like just another one of the dismissive names people have been lobbing at Occupy ever since it cropped up in Zuccotti Park last September. But that’s what activist Laura Hanna promises in the fundraising extravaganza the Occupy group Strike Debt is putting on tonight at Le Poisson Rouge in the West Village.

"The art collective Not an Alternative sets up giant props they made for the event. Photo by Caroline Lewis

For some, this will be a quirky variety show, but for alternative music and comedy fans, this will be a star-studded event. Comedians like Janeane Garofolo and David Rees will entertain along with members of Neutral Milk Hotel, Sonic Youth, Fugazi, and Das Racist (OK, there will be magicians, jugglers, and real live Occupiers as well).

What brings them all together? It’s the kickoff of the Rolling Jubilee. The Rolling Jubilee is an ongoing “project of Strike Debt that buys debt for pennies on the dollar, but instead of collecting it, abolishes it,” explains the group’s website.

And thanks to some very kind words from mainstream commentators hailing from all over the political spectrum, the group far surpassed their goal for tonight’s fundraiser before it even started.

“Whoa, did you see that?” asked Annie Spencer, a member of Strike Debt. “The live ticker on the Rolling Jubilee website just crossed $200,000 being raised.” That’s enough to buy and abolish more than $4 million worth of debt.

Praises being sung of the Rolling Jubilee are rightly qualified by the observation that this is a nice thought, but probably won’t make a dent in America’s $11 trillion of debt. In fact, the group can’t even promise to erase an entire family’s debt.

“This first debt purchase of over $100,000 of medical debt is roughly 80 different people,” said Thomas Gokey, who helped execute the group’s successful test run.

Gokey said that certain kinds of debt, like mortgage debt and student debt, are also more difficult to erase. “As we learn more about the industry and talk to more people with expertise who are willing to help us, we may learn that there are additional things possible.”

But if nothing else, the Rolling Jubilee is educating people about the rules of the debt game by letting them join in.

The fundraiser will be interactive as well. “I think what makes us different is we don’t actually have telephones that are ringing in,” said Hanna. “But we have a social media booth that we’re going to set up so we can interact with people who are watching the LiveStream.”

You can learn more about debt and the Rolling Jubilee by checking out the resources on their website or watching the LiveStream of tonight’s fundraiser, which will be complete with “speed lectures” on a variety of debt-related issues. And jugglers – don’t forget the jugglers.

A lawsuit brought by three alleged Occupy Wall Street protesters against the NYPD was settled by the city last week. On Nov. 7, 2011, Kira Moyer-Sims, Angela Richino and Matthew Vrvilo claim they were arrested without cause, detained for 24 hours and subjected to a strip search after leaving a coffee shop near the Manhattan Bridge.

“I felt like I had been arrested for a thought crime,” Moyer-Sims told the New York Times.

According to Vijayant Pawar, the attorney for the group, they were arrested on the belief that they were going to a protest, possibly because of what they looked like or because the NYPD followed them.

“They had not been arrested before and have not been arrested since then. They were not going to protest that day. Were they part of the OWS movement? It’s hard to say who is,” Pawar told Gothamist.

The settlement states that the city will pay a total of $50,000 to the plaintiffs. Richino will be awarded $20,000 while Moyer-Sims and Vrvilo will receive $15,000 each. Pawar said that his clients were satisfied with the settlement.

Rep. Nadler Demands OSHA Enforcement for Sandy Recovery

As the recovery efforts from Hurricane Sandy continue, Congressman Jerrold Nadler wants to ensure that workers who are cleaning up are provided proper protective equipment and that the Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) is enforcing labor laws.

Congressman Nadler serves New York’s 8th Congressional District, which includes the hard-hit communities of Coney Island, Sea Gate, Brighton Beach, Red Hook and Lower Manhattan.

“We must not compound the devastation of Hurricane Sandy by subjecting recovery and cleanup workers to unnecessary hazards and risks,” Nadler said in a statement.

According to OSHA, cleanup can be referred to restoring electricity, communications, water and sewer services and more, aiming to bring a feel of normalcy to citizens. Some of the protective measures that should be enforced include assuming that all power lines are live, monitoring the exposure to chemical hazards, following safe tree-cutting procedures and using a secure ladder when dealing with heights. The workers should also wear the proper protective equipment of a hard hat, shoes, reflective vest and safety glasses. Nadler has drawn parallels to 9/11 cleanup efforts that left many first responders and workers with serious health problems.

“If we are to avoid yet another avoidable health crisis, OSHA must now uphold its responsibility to ensure that all cleanup workers are outfitted with proper protective equipment, and that all contractors comply with federal safety and respiratory protection laws,” Nadler said.

LES Murderer Sentenced to 25-to-Life

Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance announced earlier this week that 35-year-old defendant Raul Barrera had been handed a 25-years-to-life sentence for the 2011 second-degree murder of a Lower East Side woman.

The victim, Sarah Coit, 23, was Barrera’s former girlfriend. One April morning at 2 a.m., he brutally attacked her with a kitchen knife in her apartment, stabbing her more than 30 times in the head and torso and leaving her to die before he went to the police station and confessed. Barrera pled guilty to avoid a trial, but Vance ensured that he still received a stiff sentence.

“This case illustrates the sobering fact that domestic violence can quickly turn fatal, and that the most dangerous time for a victim is when she or he tries to leave a relationship,” Vance said in a statement. “Shockingly, this murder was one of 92 such ‘family-related homicides’ in Manhattan in 2011. Far too many domestic violence victims remained trapped in relationships from which they see no escape.”

Vance also announced the opening of Manhattan’s first Family Justice Center next year, which will provide services for domestic violence victims. Currently, victims are encouraged to call the DA’s office’s domestic violence hotline at 212-335-4308.

Compiled by Megan Bungeroth and John Friia

By Paul Bisceglio

Double-decker bus tourists had plenty to see when they reached the Financial District on Monday: grungy drum lines parading down the streets, crowds dressed in mock business suits, anarchist vests and polar bear costumes, and donuts hooked to fishing poles dangling in front of cops. It was Occupy Wall Street’s one-year anniversary, and roughly 1,000 activists showed up to celebrate.

Protests kicked off around 8 in the morning, when the activists flooded the Financial District from its surrounding parks to interrupt business-as-usual on Wall Street. Police had barricaded all roads leading to the district’s cobble-stoned center, so protesters clogged the intersection of Pine and Nassau streets until the cops forced them onto the sidewalks and began to make arrests. The protesters then dispersed into small groups that independently roamed the neighborhood, some marching around with music and costumes, others parking themselves along Broadway or in Zuccotti Park—OWS’s original occupation spot—to accost posted cops and corporate-looking passersby.

Members of the Occupy movement traveled from as far as Vermont and Oakland, Calif., to heed New York General Assembly’s recent call to shut down Wall Street on the morning of the movement’s anniversary. The protesters rallied for various causes that encompassed corporate responsibility, education equality, environmental awareness and women’s rights, with signs like “I can’t afford to get sick,” “It’s the bankers, stupid,” “Public schools, not bombs” and “Police the parks, not our bodies.” As a teen from New Jersey put it, “Where there’s a problem, there’s an Occupy movement.”

The protesters reunited later in the morning at Bowling Green, where anarchic teens, parents with baby strollers and activists from the ’60s shared speeches and songs that decried corporate America. An elderly man in a police uniform told West Side Spirit that he was a retired Philadelphia cop who joined the movement after he heard OWS’s declaration last year. A man in punk clothing admitted that his upper-middle class parents support him so that he can contribute to the cause. “Reverend” Billy Talen, the white suit-clad OWS icon from the Church of Stop Shopping, passed through the crowd proclaiming that the “1 percent” were living for the death of the rest of us.

“People ask me if I think I can make a difference,” said a retired college administrator, explaining her reason for being there. “I say no, not by myself. But now I am doing my part to contribute to something bigger. That’s how a movement grows.”

Many activists shared her optimism, yet there were also grumblings of dissatisfaction with the day’s impact throughout the crowd. One woman expressed disappointment in the turnout, which was far below the numbers of last year’s occupation. Another protester mocked the morning’s excessive speeches: “I have something important to say, so everybody listen to me,” he said, mimicking the speakers. “We need to get back out on the streets!” If Wall Street was supposed to be shut down, he wondered, why was everything still running—albeit slower, with a much larger police presence?

Around the protesters, local employees went about their normal lives as best they could. Construction workers found benches to rest on in Zuccotti Park, and many scoffed at the protesters’ outfits. “All this stuff’s silly to me,” one construction worker said. “Even with corruption and fraud, when big businesses profit, we all profit.”

A source at a bank in the area added that “higher-ups” in the building were apathetic about the demonstrations. Many bankers look at the protesters as “jobless bums” who take to the streets to get attention, not to effect change, the source said.

After Bowling Green, the activists moved to Battery Park to plan more marches and demonstrations throughout the district. Nearly 150 people were arrested by mid-afternoon, according to police, most for disorderly conduct.

Last September, protesters set up camp in Zuccotti Park and launched Occupy Wall Street, a global campaign for economic equality, political transparency and just about every other cause people fight for these days. The occupation drew disparate activists from across the country to the Financial District for two months until police forced them out. Now, OWS mastermind New York General Assembly is summoning its acolytes back to Wall Street for Sept. 17, the movement’s one-year anniversary.

“Join us for three days of education, celebration and resistance to economic injustice with permitted convergences and assemblies, concerts and mass civil disobedience,” invites s17nyc.org, the movement’s anniversary website. Judging by its schedule, the weekend looks to be as grand as this invitation promises: Occupy-related groups have planned events throughout Manhattan on Sept. 15-17, ranging from films to closing off the New York Stock Exchange.

The schedule’s specifics are still being worked out in the movement’s weekly planning meetings (by consensus, of course), and many events are being arranged independently through social media, so here is a rough guide to where you need to be to get in on the action on “#S17”—or where you need to avoid to have a peaceful weekend.

SATURDAY, Sept. 15
Occupy Town Square
Washington Square Park, 11 a.m., s17nyc.org
The park is the official convergence point for all occupy-related groups on the anniversary weekend’s first day. Organizers promise a full day of games, performances, skill-shares, trainings and “horizontal, facilitated assemblies.” Activists will mingle, establish their demands and plan demonstrations for the weekend and beyond.

Anti-Capitalist March
Central Park, 59th Street and Fifth Avenue, 4:30 p.m., facebook.com/directactionnyc
According to a Facebook event page, Direct Action NYC is organizing the late-afternoon march through the Upper East Side, starting from the southeast corner of Central Park.

Occupy the Film Festival
Anthology Film Archives, 32 Second Ave.,
6 and 8:30 p.m., occupyfilmfestival.com
AFA will host “Occupy the Film Festival,” two evenings of films, photography and Q&A sessions with directors, all of which will show you “the real stories the 1 percent doesn’t want you to see,” says the festival.

SUNDAY, Sept. 16
Occupy Town Square
Foley Square and Thomas Paine Park, Worth Street betw. Lafayette and Centre streets,
11 a.m., s17nyc.org
Day two moves the movement’s official meeting place to the Civic Center, where a street fair and Open Assembly will focus on “solutions and alternatives to the current system.” Foley Square will also host a concurrent, afternoon-long concert (headliners TBA) for activists more inclined to head-bang along to socio-political diatribes than to speak them. Also, Rosh Hashanah services!

Autonomous FTP March
East Harlem, 8 p.m., facebook.com/directactionnyc
Direct Action NYC will hold a second march, this one with the theme “F.T.P.” (F*** the Police), according to a Facebook event page. Protesters will begin to roam the neighborhood at 8 p.m. from a location yet to be determined.

Occupy the Film Festival
Anthology Film Archives, 32 Second Ave.,
6 and 7:30 p.m., occupythefilmfestival.com
Day two of “Occupy the Film Festival.”

MONDAY, Sept. 17
All Roads Lead to Wall Street
Throughout Financial District, 7 a.m., s17nyc.org
The big day. If the movement has its way, there are few places you will be able to go in the Financial District this Monday without seeing the 99 percent in action. Working from neighborhood’s peripheral parks, says the S17 website, different groups will crowd intersections, march through the streets and block off the New York Stock Exchange. Specific targets include the Charging Bull and, of course, Zuccotti Park. To prevent complete mayhem, apparently, event organizers have drafted an Action Plan that calls for the movement’s diverse crews to avoid interfering with each other’s individual expressions of disobedience.

Bike Monday
Seward Park, Canal Street and East Broadway, 6 a.m., owsbc.org
The OWS Bike Coalition is organizing an early-morning ride for “biketivists” from the park around Downtown, free breakfast included.

Emma Goldman Popular Assembly
Veterans Memorial Park, 55 Water St., 6 p.m., s17nyc.org
A Popular Assembly in memory of Emma Goldman will convene following the day’s protests to provide “a non-oppressive, non-hierarchical and non-confrontational space to discuss issues relevant to envisioning a better world.”

By Matt Harvey

Last week on a late Thursday afternoon, a middle-aged man in tie-dye strides up Zuccotti Park’s eastern steps. His hands cupped around his mouth, he calls out to any fellow Occupy Wall Street (OWS) supporters. “Hey, you guys!” No one responds. His only erstwhile OWS ally in earshot is Jonathan Gilbert, who is busy acting out his “nautical rescue plan for saving the world.” Pausing between his spiel, Gilbert points over to his compatriot and says, “That’s Jason the conversation killer.” The only two OWS supporters in the plaza are barely on speaking terms.

Then Gilbert tells me about his other plan. To buy live chickens from Petco and set them free in the plaza. He whispers conspiratorially, “Want to go in on it with me 50-50?”
The existence of Jonathan and Jason in the park notwithstanding, along with a visibly beefed-up police presence, on this afternoon, it’s difficult to conceive that just one year ago this stretch of granite was home to a large utopian experiment: the freewheeling OWS encampment that was the fountainhead of a larger “Occupy Movement.” It seemed to herald the promise of a 1960s-like change in social consciousness on a national scale, or in the words of public intellectual Cornell West, “a democratic awakening.”

But as it turned out, if the Occupy Movement was indeed a millennial repeat of the spirit of the 1960s, it only was so in the sense that Karl Marx predicted: “History repeats itself; first as tragedy, second as farce.” Almost from the get-go, #OWS seemed to move at a dizzying pace, bursting instantaneously from obscurity into the forefront of the American zeitgeist. (Some of this can no doubt be attributed to social media’s ability to create large crowds quickly.)

But before the media feeding frenzy that developed around Zuccotti during the heyday of the movement last autumn, there was a short period of time when mainstream reporters generally ignored the ragtag interlopers— armed with “We Are the 99%” signs and sleeping bags—picketing Wall Street. (The original site of the protest was Bowling Green and One Chase Plaza.)

I first began covering OWS just when this band of protesters “occupied” Zuccotti Park, re-christening it with its original name, “Liberty Plaza.” These were heady days, when everyone in the park (minus the cops and informants) channeled their disaffection with the current economic system into creating a new type of urban protest community.
The protesters were emboldened when they won a handful of victories allowing them to stay in the park, even as the NYPD seemed ever more eager to evict them. Donations came pouring in, allowing for a bounty of resources—especially frequent meals—to be distributed among the flock. It was then that the media began to take a stronger notice and create their various narratives and counter-narratives. Protesters were always willing and eager to talk. Some were more cogent on political issues of the day than others. Predictably, the right-wing media pounced on the occupiers, describing them as “lazy, unemployed socialists,” even while for the most part their stated political aims were modest. (In those early days, the most frequent refrains heard were of a pressing need to take corporate money out of politics, to restore democracy and increase taxes on the “1 percent.”)

By mid-October, the Zuccotti encampment had become daily tabloid fodder, especially as undesirable elements began creeping into the park, taking advantage of the plentitude of free resources. There were widespread rumors, substantiated by a report in the Daily News on Oct. 31, that the NYPD was sending vagrants into the encampment to wreak havoc. In any case, a rift had been created between the earnest do-gooder protests who swept and cleaned and the ne’er-do-wells who did drugs and sponged off the camp’s resources.

By early November, the plaza had devolved into a full-fledged tent city bursting at the seams with bodies fighting for decreasing space. The smell of weed was always in the air, and the political causes on display—especially as the so-called black bloc moved in—aimed to offend middle-class sensibilities. Petty thefts became rampant. So it came as a surprise to only the starriest-eyed OWS believers when after midnight Nov. 15 the NYPD unleashed a blaze of force that completely wiped the encampment off the map. Looking at pictures of Zuccotti the next day, one might have wondered if the downtown utopian experiment ever existed at all.

Post-eviction, Occupy’s trajectory toward obsolescence has been equally rapid, begging the question of whether the movement was able to achieve anything meaningful during its short lifespan. Certainly it can take credit for instilling a flurry of buzzwords into the national psyche that changed the terms of the economic debate. Indeed, the very way in which many Americans think about how wealth and political power coalesces has been altered by the concept of the “1 percent.”

Cynically, the national Occupy movement might be seen as another pseudo-rebellious lifestyle for young adults who aren’t cut out for the rat race—like obsessive tattooing or following Phish. Now a year on, OWS’ imprint seems lightest where it is needed most, near the financial centers of power. (While conversely you can find devoted Occupy denizens in small towns like Ithaca, N.Y.) Worst of all perhaps, despite its exciting rhetoric of economic equality, Occupy’s influence during a decisive election—when real issues determining the well-being of a majority of Americans are in play—appears to be nonexistent. Some of this absence of muscle-flexing during the election season may be attributed to choice. Journalist and activist Chris Hedges, probably the closest the movement has to an intellectual mouthpiece, once opined in an interview with the blog Truthout that “the greatest enemy of the Occupy movement is Barack Obama.”

Perhaps. But after the crackdowns on the national Occupy movements in the fall—and especially in Zuccotti Park—spokesmen for the movement promised an impressive comeback the following spring. That such a show of power never materialized has added to those skeptical of Occupy’s ability to muster its forces at will. OWS has planned a flurry of events to mark its anniversary that aim to prove skeptics wrong with an impressive show of strength, and the NYPD for one isn’t taking any chances. Even so, pointing to the giant white concrete slabs the NYPD has amassed near the plaza, Gilbert says gleefully, “The cops are nervous about the anniversary.”

OWS BY THE NUMBERS

22,823 individuals
2,762 cities

twitter mentions in 11/2011
10,655

twitter mentions in 09/2012
11,407

arrests reported as of 09/12
7,400

number of times U.S.
newspapers published the word “inequality” in 10/10

 409

source: Lexis/Nexis, the nation

HEADLINES

07/13/11
Adbusters proposes a peaceful demonstration to occupy Wall Street.

09/17/11
The first dayof OWS in Zucotti Park with 1,000 people.

09/30/11
700 protesters are arrested for blocking traffic on the Brooklyn Bridge.

10/15/11
Thousands participate in The Global Day of Action.

10/25/11
Oakland police use  rubber bullets and tear gas on the protesters at the Frank H. Ogawa Plaza. An Iraq War veteran is critically injured.

10/27/11
In Time is hailed as the first OWS Hollywood movie by io9.com, salon.com and huffingtonpost.com.

11/15/11
On day 60 of the protest, NYPD clears Zucotti Park.

11/16/11
An 84-year-old woman is pepper sprayed at an Occupy Seattle protest.

11/17/11
The first OWS book, This Changes Everything: Occupy Wall Street and the 99% Movement, is released.

11/21/11
UC Davis police officer pepper sprays a line of passive students. The videos go viral and
gather national attention.

source: motherjones.com, washington post, grist.com

Photo Courtesy of Wiki Commons

By Alissa Fleck

Ever since OWS encampments were ejected from Zuccotti Park last fall, Brookfield Properties security company, in conjunction with the NYPD, has drawn up a set of rules aimed at stamping out any fledgling Occupy activity. These rules are “akin to being subjected to a TSA screening” for park patrons, reports Gothamist.

Brookfield released the “Rules of Engagement” document for security guards and police officers, which has been circulating the internet, highlighting the complex and delicate situation. It even describes various rules as being “in flux.”

One excerpt from the document reminds enforcers of the “zero tolerance” policy: “NYPD supervisors that prove to be resistant to enforcing the rules of the park should be reminded that Chief Esposito has agreed to this set of rules and wanted them to be enforced with zero tolerance.”

Gothamist reminds readers Esposito gained infamy as a past aggressor to OWS protestors, including shoving several onto a sidewalk at a demonstration. The document also outlines items which are prohibited, including drums, yoga mats and temporary kitchens.

These regulations reportedly exceed those formerly upheld by a Manhattan Supreme Court Justice.

If OWS-ers are prohibited from Brookfield properties, they do have other privately owned public spaces they can occupy nearby. For a full list of the Lower Manhattan locations most vulnerable to an OWS takeover click here.

By Paul Bisceglio

With Occupy Wall Street’s one-year anniversary celebration in the Financial District scheduled for Sept. 17, New York city officials are wondering if OWS protestors might have anything else in the works to commemorate their inaugural occupation of Zuccotti Park.

Another takeover, perhaps?

Michael Levine, professor of urban planning at Pace University and director of planning for Community Board 1, doesn’t know when the next wave of public advocacy groups will move in, but he can say where in lower Manhattan the occupation is most likely to occur.

Levine recently challenged his students to venture out into the city to find its most vulnerable Privately Owned Public Spaces (POPS), publicly accessible outdoor plazas that, like Zuccotti Park, are owned by commercial companies, not the city.

POPS have been ubiquitous in Manhattan sincea 1961 zoning resolution introduced a program that allowed developers to construct taller buildings if their plans included outdoor plazas. They tend to be more occupation-friendly than city-owned parks because some are open 24/7, don’t display concrete rules and regulations and are owned by the large businesses that public advocacy groups oppose.

Levine’s students rated 28 POPS south of Canal Street on a scale of 0 to 4, from invulnerable to highly vulnerable. They based their rating on four categories: convenience, size, signage or lack thereof and reputation of owner. The following three plazas scored over 3.0, making them the top of the POPS—the three privately owned public spaces in lower Manhattan most vulnerable to occupation.

140 Broadway
Owner: HSBC
Area: 3,347 square feet
Score: 3.1
Student Nellyn Caraballo gave this plaza across from Zuccotti Park major points for its high-traffic location along Broadway and its big-time corporate owners, but noted that it is too small and busy for group occupancy—plus the owners have been clever enough to post a sign prohibiting camping.

388 Greenwich St.
Owner: Salomon Smith Barney
Area: 51,635 square feet
Score: 3.2
A huge, visible area with benches, grass and trees makes this Tribeca park ideal for group gatherings, according to student Arlida Bucaj, and the park’s corporate owners make it all the more enticing. The location lost points for clear signage, though nothing is posted to prohibit sleeping.

59 Maiden Lane
Owner: Amtrust Realty Corporation
Area: 32,604 square feet
Score: 3.5
This capacious plaza surrounds part of the New York City Finance Department at the intersection of Maiden Lane and William Street. The plaza scored big on size, absent signage and its suit-wearing owner. The majority of the plaza is open concrete, however, with scatterings of trees and benches on the ends, so student Erin Hanraty deducted points for convenience and comfort. The plaza might be a great place for gathering, but protestors had better be sure to bring some chairs and padding, as well as watch out for trampling commuters.

photo by Michael @ NW Lens

Stephen Gyllenhaal is one of those people that doesn’t really ever seem to get tired. Since his television debut in 1980, Gyllenhaal has directing credits on shows from Numb3rs to The Shield to Felicity to ABC children’s stuff.

The guy who opened the Hollywood door for his children, Maggie and Jake, which he says thankfully now opens tables in Hollywood restaurants, is now traveling the country publicizing his new movie. So I, of course, had to sit down with Mr. Gyllenhaal.

Grassroots —an adaptation of Phil Campbell’s non-fiction Zioncheck for President— is a hilarious Occupy-vibed up-lifter about a polar bear suit-wearing Grant Cogswell (Joel David Moore, Avatar), Phil Campbell (Jason Biggs, American Pie) and their huge splash in Seattle’s political scene. Their goal? Take down incumbent city councilman Rich McIver and transform Seattle with a proposed massive monorail.

While reflecting on his new movie, Stephen also opens up about his approach to filmmaking, superheroes, politics, his celebrity children, and Occupy Wall Street. He even teaches me a life lesson about sitting on the couch.

Q: There are many political movies that are really plot driven, about grand things. This follows the characters a bit more. What attracted you to the humanity of this specific story rather than just the actual plot?

A: A story is about characters going through something. I think, ultimately, it’s not the other way around. It’s very hard to find a good story, and this is a true story that seemed to have something very fascinating at its core.

I think underneath the surface there’s bubbling an issue of racism. Is this racism? And how’s that gonna play out? You’re always looking for the subtext and if you can feed it properly. And it’s hard. I think as the movie goes on, you’re laughing and you’re joking and it’s funny and all that, but then slowly you begin to worry that this story may not turn out all that well. We partway get there where the audience is going “Are these people in this movie out of control? Is this gonna end really badly?” Because if you feel like you know where the movie’s gonna go, some of the tension’s gonna go.

The real-life people made a choice at the end which was a true choice. There’s a unique story in this piece that comes out of these characters, something really ethical and emotional. The three main characters all bring to the table very interesting agendas.

The two people playing these main characters are generally known for their comedic roles (David Moore and Biggs). And you said yourself, you’re a dramatist. Was there any leap of faith you had to make to trust them?

I feel I have relative confidence in how I’m gonna go about a scene. I’m not sure that confidence is always correct, but it’s fun. I kind of relish “am I gonna pull this off?” And usually you have different exit strategies and you try different things and you do lots of takes, but I also had auditioned them.

I keep a set that’s pretty loose and open and I have my tools and strategies. That’s the nice thing about doing television— I work a lot. The engine is running pretty often and that helps.

Did you have to give them any leeway with improvisation?

I don’t usually give too much leeway about language, although some. I think the words have to be their own, but I’m pretty strict. We did a read-through and we go through the scenes, and at that stage we rewrite— and often times actors have great improvements.

There’s some room for improvisation word-wise on the set, but we’re moving pretty fast, so it’s usually not better. With Joel, for instance, there was a lot of long stuff.

photo by Michael @ NW Lens

It’s impossible to be word for word.

Yeah, exactly. But I felt that by the time we got to that stage that we had gotten to what I wanted.

Where I do feel like there’s room to maneuver is emotionally. What the motivations are, there’s room to play.  That’s why I kind of like to lock the language in. That way you’re not sitting there thinking about the words so much, you’re thinking about the emotions. If the emotions are correct and the words change a little bit, that’s fine. All I’m really looking for is real feelings.

I remember you said before that you were most proud of the scene where McIver (Cedric the Entertainer) said Grant Cogswell was a one-goal politician who only wanted the monorail. Do you think something as small as that can have that much of an effect on a community?

Oh, absolutely. I think it’s true with any city, although I don’t know what the issues are in all the cities, haha, I think something like the monorail can change a city completely.

If you think about New York without the subways, or Paris without the Eiffel Tower— although that one might not have been the best example, haha, they’re game-changers.

Venice without boats.

Ha yeah! Venice without boats.

You can go through this and see people have had vision and executed it. But some people have made terrible mistakes and spent billions of dollars doing the wrong thing, so I think one thing, without any question, can have profound, profound effects.

I think Grant was absolutely right although it sounded a bit wacky at times. If you think about New York and the subway, it’s a game-changer. Everyone rides them.

Is it possible today for somebody to have as much of an impact on a society or community as Grant did?

Absolutely. I think as much or much more. We’re spotlighting Grassroots candidates across the country, and I think this year may be the year where it starts to turn. Think about the Tea Party.  The Tea Party has had a profound effect on the Republican Party.  I don’t think entirely positive, but it is the voice of the people.

I think Occupy Wall Street had a profound effect, but it was attacked. The Tea Party was never attacked. Occupy Wall Street was definitely attacked. I don’t think it’s gonna go away for good, democracy is not going away in this country. There’s gonna be problems, there always have been, but there are gonna be people who rise up.

Generally the politicians come from the “one percent”, that’s who’s running the country primarily. The Occupy movement really showed that, but you’ve got a much larger bank of people to choose from when you go for the “99 percent”. There are more poor people in this country than anything else. One of the problems is they’re not being fully educated and that’s a big problem because you’re not using the full resources. But the smartest people are of course going to be in the largest segment of the population, and that’s the poorer part.

Are there any parallels between Occupy and your story?

I think that Occupy Wall Street is saying that Wall Street’s corrupt; that Wall Street are thieves, and it’s all wrong.

I think I felt in basically a mainstream movie —which is what I was trying to make here— I kept a spin of humor on Grant, but Grant is basically articulating the Occupy Wall Street position. I wrote this before Occupy, but the sentiments of Occupy and my views are very similar, you know? These views have been around a while, ha. I think also the idea of power and perspective coming from the lower “99 percent” is something I’d subscribe to.

Moving toward the story again. The dynamic between Grant and Phil, do you think there’s any way Grant could have done what he did without Phil?

I think they really needed each other. I think they equally needed each other. Phil needed Grant’s vision and energy and hopefulness, and Grant really need Phil’s smarts and savvy and discipline and down-to-earthness haha.

It really speaks to the fact that none of us can do this alone, that there are no superheroes. There are people working together, and that’s the way you get things done. I mean, that’s the way you do it. I do enjoy some of these superhero movies, but more and more I think they don’t move us in the right direction about how you solve problems.

Kind of odd because [your daughter]  Maggie was in Batman.

Haha, yeah. But she didn’t play a superhero! Wait, and she died!

Ha, Good point! By the way, you were talking about how you don’t think you’d ever work with your children Maggie or Jake, but do you want to?

They’re spectacular actors, I’d love to work with them. But I’d rather be their dad, that’s more important or delightful to me. There is no second-place in life next to being a parent. That’s it, and then everything else is way back there somewhere. And then being a grandparent.

It makes you just fall in love with human beings that you can’t imagine ever happening. Yeah, I’d love to work with them, but not at the expense of being a dad.

Finally, there was one comment on IMDB saying they were expecting a serious political statement. Which it does do by saying something like a monorail can make a big difference. But I also feel, like you wrote in your director’s note, “laugh, cry, vote for the little guy,” is your statement to promote people to speak their voice?

The whole idea is just jump in. Fail. Jump in, just get off the sofa.

I talk to these candidates we’ve been spotlighting and they go “I’m terrified the first time I went out to knock on doors! But I did it and it was cool, just connecting with people”. And it’s hard to connect with people. It seems like it’s easier to do nothing and just be cool, but it’s actually the hardest thing to do at all, because then you become lonely and isolated.

But really, for all the wrong reasons, it doesn’t matter, jump into it and connect with people. And go for something you believe in, even if you half-believe in it, go for it and you’ll learn something.

Everyone I’ve talked to who runs for office says the same thing— “It’s profoundly invigorating.”

–Nick Gallinelli