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APRIL 2012 THE TRIBECA TRIB After gathering in Zuccotti Park, a group calling themselves American Spring walk quietly down Broadway to hang a wreath on Charging Bull. Far right: No sooner had the wreath been placed on the bull than a police officer quickly removed it.
Quiet Protest Far from the Noisy Action Denied a permit to demonstrate at Hunger Memorial, OWS group takes an alternate route BY JULIET HINDELL
On the sunny Saturday afternoon of St. Patrick’s Day, a small group of Occupy Wall Street supporters gathered quietly on the upper level of the Irish Hunger Memorial, offering potatoes in brown bags to tourists. “Hi, would you like some potatoes to plant? They’re organic Irish potatoes,” offered Jessica Hall, one of the organizers of the event. Met with bemused looks and occasional takers, they had brought the potatoes as symbols of both Irish famine and rebirth. The potatoes came with some soil and instructions for planting. It was a poignant and impromptu finale to a day filled with solemn ceremony and tense drama, a vivid counterpoint to the action at Zuccotti Park during the weekend, where 73 protesters had been arrested. “It’s great to get here. This has been a very soulful and beautiful day, which is exactly how we planned it,” Hall said. “We need to move on from shouting if we want to be taken seriously.” Shouting and worse were what the Battery Park City Authority had feared when, earlier in the month, it denied the group a permit to hold a St. Patrick’s Day ceremony to be attended by an estimated 200 people at the memorial. The rejection came on the heels of a nearly unanimous vote of Community Board 1’s Battery Park City Committee to deny the request. “It just doesn’t feel safe,” said Justine Cuccia, a public board member. The committee said the group had not made adequate preparations, including mapping out a specific route and planning for crowd control on a day when it was expected that 2,000 visitors would come to the site. There were also concerns that some people might try to occupy the monument or its surroundings by pitching tents. Not taking any chances, the authority posted a sign at the entrance to the memorial banning public demonstra-
to the roots of St. Patrick’s Day,” said the Rev. Robert Brashear of West Park Presbyterian Church. “We’re here today to bring an end to exploitation.” Carrying the wreath and walking arm in arm, a group of about 30—far fewer than hoped—set off in silence down Broadway, with hundreds of other marchers carrying signs and chanting behind them. At the corner of Thames Street, the small group stopped when it realized that most of the marchers, chanting, “We are the 99 percent,” had peeled away from them at Wall Street and headed for the New York Stock Exchange. “I’m frustrated with the lack of solidarity in this movement,” said one American Spring supporter who asked not to be identified. “We want to have a peaceful protest but they want to be rowdy and anarchic.” Others sounded a note of tolerance towards their fellow demonstrators. Shen Tong, a veteran of Tiananmen Square protests in China, had been in late-night discussions with various groups of PHOTOS BY CARL GLASSMAN
Above: In Battery Park, the group says a blessing over potatoes. Left: As the day of demonstrating ends Teddy Mayes says goodbye to Mary Caliendo at the Irish Hunger Memorial.
tions, sleeping and even drumming at the monument. “Everyone has a preconceived notion of Occupy Wall Street being anarchist kids and they get all the attention,” said the Rev. Mary Caliendo, a Wiccan priest and co-organizer of the group. “We’re doing a lot of real work to help with real issues and our voices are never heard.” Denied a permit to hold their ceremony at the memorial, the group issued its own “self permit” which announced that
it would march from Zuccotti Park to Battery Park, where it would hold a ritual “to bury hunger, greed and grief followed by a joyous rebirth and welcoming of a new season.” Starting out in Zuccotti Park, the group had gathered in a circle around a large funeral wreath they had brought to symbolize the burial of oppression. Using the OWS “people’s mic,” they invited everyone to join their peaceful and solemn procession. “We’re here to remember the Irish famine, in which millions died and millions came to America. We want to return
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