Groups: Barricades at NYC ex-Occupy camp illegal

[cory777]

Associated Press
Jan. 9, 2012

NEW YORK (AP) — Barricades surrounding a New York City park that was the epicenter of the Occupy Wall Street movement are a violation of city zoning law because they restrict public access to the space, civil rights groups said Monday.

The New York Civil Liberties Union and the National Lawyers Guild filed a zoning complaint with the city's buildings department, urging officials to remove the metal barricades that have surrounded Manhattan's Zuccotti Park since Mayor Michael Bloomberg evicted the protesters Nov. 15 in an early-morning police raid.

"The barricades have all but ended Liberty Plaza's role as a functioning public plaza," the letter says.

Since the eviction, members of the public have only been able to enter the public through two "checkpoints" at the park that are guarded by police officers or security personnel. The park had been the site of a months-long encampment that became the de facto headquarters for the Occupy movement, which targets economic inequality.

link - http://news.yahoo.com/groups-barricades-nyc-ex-occupy-camp-illegal-212351615.html



Breaking Activist News - http://activistnews.blogspot.com/

[freshwest]

1. Good.

[daleanime]

2. ????

[freshwest]

3. 'Good' for Occupy, obviously. If you have a problem with Occupy, kindly address the OP, not me.

[Historic NY]

4. Cops guarding private property....

why don't the owners hire their own security.

[freshwest]

5. Yes, a good question, but there may some systematic reason for why the police are being used.

I thought the police with the barricades, staying around the clock to protect the Wall Street bull statue was very educational. Here they were protecting this dead thing, this emblem of predatory capitalism against the living. It was surreal to see that effort spent to protect that symbol of aggression and greed that led us to this place.

I can understand why a person employed to save all life and property after a while simply begins to do what they're told, when confronted with the kalidescopic nature of a crowded urban environment made more chaotic by protestors who saying in effect: 'Your world view is no longer valid, we challenge the entire system.'

I would love to see Occupy have a presence in NYC such as they did in Zuccotti Park, with the books and all of that. It was a shame things went down the way they did. Now it's more chaotic and even more difficult for everyone. I wonder what the end result of this ruling may be.

What's strange to me as well, is the concept of the 'private park' deemed as a 'public space.' It was and is, designed for the use of the public and the police stopped that. In a way, perhaps the Occupation was seen as an attempt to make that 'public' space 'private', thus a theft from the public?

I'm not sure what the real reasons were for the removal, and it certainly didn't deserve the brutality that was used. I don't know if that is going to be addressed. And if Occupy will be allowed back there.

[boppers]

7. "'private park' deemed as a 'public space."'

It actually is both.

"It is a Privately-Owned-Public-Space (POPS) controlled by Brookfield Properties.[1] The park was created in 1968 by Pittsburgh-based United States Steel, after the property owners negotiated its creation with city officials, and named Liberty Plaza Park and situated beside One Liberty Plaza."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zuccotti_Park

Basically, they had to make a park in order to bypass a zoning ordinance... this tends to confuse people who are only used to things being public, or private, but never both.

[freshwest]

8. Thanks for the link, I had no idea what it looked like, really. It doesn't seem a comfortable place

To camp out on, I really was expecting it to be grassy and not stone or concrete like that:



But it gives a context to where this all took place. That would be considered 'downtown' by any city standards. Not what I imagine a park to be at all.

In a lot of ways, it would be easier to clean up than lawn grass, which would have been turned to mud quickly.

So, as a 'public' space, I guess the city felt it had jurisdiction to do what they did. I find in most cases, whether I agree or not, that people take actions for what they believe are good reasons. I find them dead wrong, but nothing really excuses the battering of unarmed citizens, particularly when it's not 'heat of the moment' or temporary insanity, or a 'threat.'

The relationships in NYC are very complex and older than the establishment of the USA itself. I cannot imagine living there, in fact I never even wanted to visit. I'm wondering why the option of Occupy moving to Central Park was not considered. Knowing nothing as I do about the geography of NYC, that might have been too far away from what Occupy needed.

I learned a lot about NYC from watching Tim Pool and his Timcast on uslivestream, as he named all the famous streets as he walked continously for most of day on New Year's Eve and into New Year's Day early morning. He has not vlogged again and I am afraid he was arrested or otherwise prevented.

Since most of these things are wireless, they are always vulnerable to being shut down. We can see how NYC, or DHS or whoever we say it was, could strangle reports getting out at will. After all, much of what this is about is ownership, who gets to be where, when and how. It's about the power in this country and the imbalance of it.

Even thought the protesters own laptops, video cameras, cellphone, etc., (BTW, Tim's excellent coverage was on a cellphone and I've never seen such quality not even from network cameramen) ...

They don't own the servers, the satellites, the fiber optics or anything that routes the communication. Those devices and system are owned by the 1%. The commons are decimated, we don't have public communications any more. We don't have ways of getting in touch with each in this fabulous grid unless the 1% says we do.

I want Occupy back in Zuccotti, but others say they have moved to the next step. Now there will be big event on January 16th, a joining of Occupy and some leading black churches, and on January 17th, OWS is going to do a more prolonged 'Occupy' in Washington, D. C. They tried to do some before, but most of the Congress was conveniently not there to meet with them, uh...

Also some sort of cable television event is going to occur as reported here on DU, with 3 each OWS members and 3 TeaPartiers. To look for common ground under the moderation on MSNBC, I think. Sounds yucky, but there are some bits of commonality that could work without name calling.

I expect more ideological rigidity and blustering from the TeaPartiers, and more trying to get along from the OWS. I worry OWS will prove too agreeable in an effort to be non-political, which the TeaParty is lying about the new brand for the GOP.

I suspect this forum was created due to the media, owned by the people who own the TeaParty to give legitimacy to their scalawags in office, Walker, Scott, Rand Paul, Ryan and the rest of them. They want to rehabilitate their party's image, get a GOP POTUS and maintain their edge in Congress. So we'll see as DUers report to us how that went.

Thanks for the information on the Park, but the reasons for it being considered public and the partnership with Brookfield is something with privatization we will see more of in this country. It just rubs me the wrong way to see what they're doing. I see it everywhere, and it's bad.

[Fire Walk With Me]

6. Answer to you and freshwest: They DO have their own private security, and they're doozies...

Of course, the cops there are no better:

[caseymoz]

9. I suggest that protestors go to the entrances

Stand or sit in there and demand to be let in. Or surround the whole area.

If protests then block the streets, then the NY City administration will have to decide between the lesser of two evils. Let them in, or have the protestors block the surrounding streets.

And, yes, that will involve more arrests, but they can't then expand the perimeter indefinitely.