letter from new york city SOME ASSEMBLY REQUIRED Witnessing the birth of Occupy Wall Street By Nathan Schneider nder the tree where the Inter- camera and his blog. People shouted exclusively, young. When they spoke, nationalU Society for Krishna Con- at him to stop; he shouted back some- they introduced themselves as stu- sciousness was founded in 1966, on the thing about the nature of public dents, artists, organizers, teachers. south side of Tompkins Square Park in space. Finally, a few from the group There were a lot of beards and hand- the East Village, sixty or so people got up to talk things through with rolled cigarettes, though neither gathered in a circle around a yel- seemed obligatory. Elders, such as low banner that read, in blue a Vietnam vet from Staten Island, spray paint, general assembly of were listened to with particular nyc. It was Saturday, August 13, care. It was a common rhetorical the third of the General Assem- tic to address the group as “You bly’s evening meetings. On the beautiful people,” which hap- side of the circle nearest the tree pened to be not just encouraging were the facilitators—David but also empirically true. Graeber, an anthropologist at the Several had accents from revo- University of London, and Marisa lutionary places—Spain, Greece, Holmes, a young filmmaker who Latin America—or had been had spent the summer interview- working to create ties among ing revolutionaries in Egypt. prodemocracy movements in “No cops or reporters,” Grae- other countries. Vlad Teichberg, ber decreed at the start of the leaning against the Hare Krishna meeting. Others demanded a ban tree and pecking at the keys of a on photographs. pink Dell laptop, was one of the I raised my hand and ex- architects of the Internet channel plained that I was a journalist Global Revolution. With his and an edit or of the blog Waging Spanish wife, Nikky Schiller, he Nonviolence, which covers move- him, and the discussion turned back had been in Madrid during the May ments for peace and justice. I prom- to me. After half an hour of interroga- 15 Movement’s occupation at Puerta ised not to take pictures. Just then, a tion and harrowing debate, I wit- del Sol. Alexa O’Brien, a slender wom- heavyset man in a tight T-shirt, with nessed for the first time an act of con- an with blond hair and black-rimmed patchy dark hair and a beard, started sensus: hands rose above heads, glasses, had covered the Arab Spring snapping photos. He was Bob Ari- fingers wiggled. I could stay. A little for the website WikiLeaks Central and hood, a fixture of the neighborhood later, I saw that Arihood and the had been collaborating with organiz- known for documenting it with his people who’d gone to confront him ers of the subsequent uprisings in Eu- were laughing together. rope; she had also been trying to fo- Nathan Schneider is a writer living in Brooklyn. Those present were mainly, but not ment a movement called U.S. Day of This page (detail) and overleaf: “Zuccotti Park, Trinity Place [October 5, 2011],” by Susan Wides. Wides’s work appears in New York in Color, by Bob Shamis (Abrams, 2011), and is on view this month at Howard Greenberg Gallery, in New York City. All photographs © Susan Wides, courtesy Kim Foster Gallery, N.Y.C. LETTER FROM NEW YORK CITY 45 Schneider Final6 cx2.indd_1220 45 12/20/11 2:39 PM 46 HARPER’S MAGAZINE / FEBRUARY 2012 Schneider Final6.indd_1215 46 12/16/11 11:15 AM LETTER FROM NEW YORK CITY 47 Schneider Final6.indd_1215 47 12/16/11 11:15 AM 48 HARPER’S MAGAZINE / FEBRUARY 2012 Schneider Final6.indd_1215 48 12/15/11 12:26 PM Rage, named after the big protests in you always act later, you might for- tol. With summer, unrest followed the Middle East. get the now!” the heat north to Greece, Spain, The meeting would last five Bob Arihood died of a heart at- and England. Europe’s summer was hours, followed by working groups tack at the end of September. By Chile’s winter, but students and convening in huddles and in nearby then, Occupy would be spreading unions rose up there too. Tel Aviv bars. I don’t think I’d seen people fast. One of his photographs of the grew a tent city. While Tahrir talking politics like this since early meeting survives on his blog, the Square was still full, the anticon- 2003, when some of us thought we only picture of its kind I’ve found. sumerist magazine Adbusters pub- could avert a war in Iraq if our In that cluster of people around the lished a blog post proposing “A Mil- chants were loud enough. When the banner, almost everyone is looking lion Man March on Wall Street.” war happened anyway, despite some toward the photographer; a man The United States seemed to go of the largest global protests in his- dressed in white is pointing into quiet after Madison, though, its pol- tory, activism seemed to give way to the lens. Some look curious, some itics again domesticated by the debt the complacent cynicism of The suspicious, some scared, some in- ceiling and the Iowa Straw Poll. Daily Show. Some people here were different. I’m barely visible in the When thousands marched on Wall young enough not to remember and far corner of the group. Street on May 12, few noticed and could shed the irony long enough to I recognize most of the others now fewer remembered. get serious about something again. in a way I didn’t then. Some have But while following the march But their anxiety was visible when a had their names and faces broadcast that day on Twitter, a thirty-two- police car passed, and conversation on the news all over the world. year-old drifter using the pseudonym slowed; a member of the Tactics There’s the woman from La- Gary Roland read about another Committee had pointed out that, as RouchePAC with such a good sing- action planned near Wall Street for any group of twenty or more in a ing voice, and the group who had the next month: Operation Empire New York City park needs a permit, gone to high school together in State Rebellion, or OpESR. That we were already breaking the law. North Dakota. When I showed Ari- tweet led him to a dot- commer- Fault lines were also already hood’s picture to a friend, he recog- turned-activist-journalist named Da- forming. There were those who nized his former roommate from art vid DeGraw. In the spring, DeGraw liked the idea of coming up with school. I try to guess what the ones I had been working with members of one demand, and those who didn’t. know best were thinking, what it the “hacktivist” collective Anony- Some wanted regulation, others was exactly that they were doing mous to help build safe online net- revolution. I heard the slogan “We there—so expectant, so at odds with works for Arab dissidents, but since are the 99 percent” for the first one another, so anxious early 2010 he had also been writing time when Chris, a member of the about being watched. about his vision of a movement clos- Food Committee, stood up and er to home, a movement in which proposed it as a tagline. There were had been watching revolutions the lower 99 percent of the United murmurs of approval but also calls fromI a distance since the beginning States would rebel against the rapac- for something more militant: “We of the year, when people rose up ity and corruption of the top 1 per- are your crisis.” When the idea and expelled dictators in Tunisia cent. An Anonymous subgroup came up of having a meeting on and Egypt, stirring up Libya, Bah- formed to organize OpESR, calling the picket line with striking Veri- rain, Syria, and Jordan. Continually itself A99. zon workers, O’Brien blocked con- refreshing my news feeds, with Al Through DeGraw’s website, Roland sensus. She didn’t want the assem- Jazeera on in the background, I helped make plans. Having recently bly to lose its independence. “We tried my best to write each day lost his job as a construction manager need to appeal to the right as well about whatever was happening in for a real estate firm, he was familiar as the left,” she said. the Middle East. I wanted to under- with New York City’s public spaces. “To the right?” a graduate student stand where these movements came He proposed that OpESR try to oc- behind me muttered. “Wow.” from, who organized them, and cupy Zuccotti Park, a publicly acces- Just about the only thing every- how. Experts in the United States sible square block just north of Wall one could agree on was the fantasy were satisfied attributing the upris- Street owned by Brookfield Office of crowds filling the area around ings to global food prices and Twit- Properties. On June 14—Flag Day— Wall Street and staying until they ter, but the revolutionaries them- Zuccotti Park would be their target. overthrew corporate oligarchy, or selves didn’t use the language of Anonymous-branded videos an- until they were driven out. As the economic or technological deter- nouncing the action had begun to evening grew darker, a pack of minism. In interviews, they seemed appear in March and got hundreds of intern-aged men walked by, looking instead to have rediscovered their thousands of views.