Occupy Wall Street: Zuccotti Park reopens -- but isn't the same

Zuccotti Park, the site of the first Occupy Wall Street camp, reopened Tuesday evening, minutes after a New York state court handed the city a victory in its effort to limit the type of protest that could be held.

Protesters initially were allowed into the park in single file through one entrance, and some indicated they wanted to stay all night. But it was unclear how they would cope without tents, generators, sleeping bags and other equipment that had turned the site into a long-running full-time protest against corporate greed and the nation’s wealthiest 1%.

Under the ruling handed down by State Supreme Court Justice Michael Stallman, the 2-month-old protest can resume, but without the equipment. The judge also said the park had to be usable by the general public, upholding the city’s argument that led to the overnight raid.

The raid on the encampment, which had set a pattern for dozens of other cities, closed the area and led to the arrest of about 200 people.

PHOTOS: Police clear out Zuccotti Park

On Tuesday evening, though the court ruled against them, the protesters seemed in good spirits. The pounding of drums, which had been heard throughout the day, seemed louder, and one demonstrator ran around inside the perimeter, sporting a sign proclaiming: “Grand Reopening.”

As they entered, the demonstrators chanted, “All day, all week, Occupy Wall Street.”

“I'm concerned about what the ruling is going to mean for the winter,” Gayle Price, 46, an unemployed New Yorker, said. She said she has been coming to the park regularly since the protest began Sept. 17.

“But the movement isn't just Zuccotti Park,” she said. “Last night and today clarified that for me.... The place was taken from us but the spirit was still there.”

FULL COVERAGE: Occupy protests

The city was quick to claim a victory for its policy of forcing the park to be closed and cleaned before being reopened to general use.

“We are gratified that the court recognized the importance of balancing public safety with the protesters' claim that building tents constitutes speech,” said Sheryl Neufeld, senior counsel for the city’s law department.

“Conditions at the park had deteriorated to the point that serious concerns about crime, fire hazards and public health needed to be addressed. As planned, protesters will be allowed to return to Zuccotti Park, but will not be permitted to bring in tents, tarps and sleeping bags. The 1st Amendment protects freedom of speech, not the right to take over and live in a public space,” she said in a statement.

The city cited a key passage in Stallman’s ruling that backed its decision:

“The movants have not demonstrated that they have a First Amendment right to remain in Zuccotti Park, along with their tents, structures, generators and other installations to the exclusion of the owner’s reasonable rights and duties to maintain Zuccotti Park, or to the rights to public access of others who might wish to use the space safely. Neither have the applicants shown a right to a temporary restraining order that would restrict the City’s enforcement of law so as to promote public health and safety,” the justice wrote.

The lawyers who fought the city insisted that they would continue the battle, though exactly how was yet to be determined. “This is just a hiccup in the road,” Danny Alterman told reporters after the ruling was handed down.

“We feel the city has acted unlawfully. We'll continue to fight here in the courts while our clients continue to fight in the streets,” said Yetta Kurland, another lawyer.

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Photo: Demonstrators from the Occupy Wall Street movement wave court orders to reopen Zuccotti Park at a member of the New York City Police Department on Tuesday. Credit: Peter Foley / Bloomberg

Occupy Wall Street: Judge backs city, ends camping in park

   Hours after New York officials raided Zuccotti Park, emptying it of the nation’s first Occupy Wall Street protest camp, a New York judge ruled in favor of the city and said that protesters may not return to the area with their tents.

The ruling was handed down by State Supreme Court Justice Michael Stallman. The judge held that the city could indeed block protesters from returning to their full-time protest, which included tents and generators, and that the public should be able to use the site.

Early Tuesday, police in riot gear had cleared the park, the spiritual home of the Occupy movement that brought a populist message into the political arena. Within weeks of that camp's creation, dozens of U.S. cities had their own encampments, each loosely based on the idea that the richest 1% of the nation should do more to help the other 99% deal with debt, lack of jobs and a poor economy.

PHOTOS: Police clear out Zuccotti Park

About 200 people were arrested in the New York raid, charged with disorderly conduct. Some were also charged with resisting arrest. The tents and sleeping bags that had been the props to thousands of photographs over the weeks were hauled away to a city garage facility.

Demonstrators, represented by the National Lawyers Guild, had asked the New York court to rule that the city acted illegally when it evicted hundreds of demonstrators from the area, also known as Liberty Park.

“This is a situation the city created,” Gideon Oliver, the lawyer for the protesters, said outside the court after a hearing. “The city came in like storm troopers in the middle of the night and indiscriminately arrested anyone who could bear witness to what happened.”

FULL COVERAGE: Occupy protests

In its court papers, the city argued that the area had become “a public safety hazard,” saying it was unhealthy and unsafe and prevented the general public from using the space. The city was backed by Brookfield Properties, which owns the park and allows general use.

At a morning news conference, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg said that the city had planned to reopen the park after the raid and after the area was cleaned. 

“The law that created Zuccotti Park required that it be open for the public to enjoy for passive recreation 24 hours a day,” Bloomberg said in a statement. “Ever since the occupation began, that law has not been complied with” because the protesters had taken over the park, “making it unavailable to anyone else.”

“I have become increasingly concerned — as had the park’s owner, Brookfield Properties — that the occupation was coming to pose a health and fire safety hazard to the protesters and to the surrounding community,” Bloomberg said.

In a statement, Brookfield praised the city for its actions.

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Photo: Occupy Wall Street activists protest outside Zuccotti Park after police removed the protesters early Tuesday morning. Hundreds of protesters rallying against inequality in America had slept in tents and under tarps in the park since Sept. 17, making it the epicenter of the global Occupy movement. Credit: Mario Tama/Getty Images

Occupy Wall Street, angry over eviction, occupies a new corner

Hundreds of supporters of Occupy Wall Street vowed Tuesday to keep up their protests, convening  at a busy corner for a meeting to discuss their next move; the city, meanwhile, appeared headed for a legal showdown over its eviction of protesters from the group's encampment.

A hearing was scheduled later on protesters' quest for an order to prohibit the city from banning tents, sleeping bags and campers from Zuccotti Park, a privately owned park that was cleared of protesters in a surprise early morning raid.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg said he had hoped to reopen the park to the public at 8 a.m., but at a news conference early Tuesday he said he wanted the issue of the restraining order to be settled before his next move.

PHOTOS: Police clear out Zuccotti Park

As a result, a handful of people who had bypassed police barriers and entered the park in lower Manhattan after a power-cleaning were shooed out by authorities, and the space remained off-limits at least for the time being.
 
But angry and often distraught Occupy Wall Street supporters moved themselves a few blocks away to the corner of Canal Street and 6th Avenue, where they began planning a general assembly meeting to plan their next move. Some also went to Foley Square, marching past City Hall en route.

"Today it's about reclaiming our park," Natas Rivera, one of the people who marched to Foley Square, told a reporter.

FULL COVERAGE: Occupy protests

Rivera, 25, had rushed in from Allentown, Pa., overnight after he got word while at an Occupy camp in Allentown of the raid in Zuccotti Park. He arrived in New York about 2:30 a.m., at the height of the eviction, and he vowed to stay around until protesters got back into Zuccotti Park.

Hundreds more protesters, many carrying American flags, then marched to Canal and 6th, where they quickly settled into another park. People stood on walls, and some had temporary structures set up with signs reading "Liberate, Occupy."

"We are unstoppable; another world is possible!" some chanted.

Garrett Perkins, 29, was among the protesters. He came to New York from Chugiak, Alaska, three weeks ago, and had managed to get out of Zuccotti Park with his tent and bags strapped to him. Perkins said that, as soon as he saw police converging on the park overnight, he packed his belongings and strapped them to his body to ensure they weren't seized.

Perkins then tied himself to four other protesters to try to hamper police. He accused officers of punching him in the jaw as he prayed and tried to remain with other protesters. "I was shocked that it could happen," he said. "I got punched in the face while praying in a park."

The reaction from people commuting to work past the park early Tuesday was mixed. Many stopped to snap pictures of the suddenly clean space. One of them, Bob Rogers, 49, who works in insurance, said he wasn't taking sides but felt that the protesters had "lost their focus" by shifting from anti-greed marches to settling into a campground.

A man in a business suit walked past the line of helmeted cops lining Broadway, clapped his hands and said, "Thank you NYPD."

But Nelson Falu, a 36-year-old concierge who had just gotten off an overnight shift from an apartment building in Battery Park City, said he was disheartened to see the park empty again. Before the protest began Sept. 17, he said, the park was just an empty thoroughfare. Occupy Wall Street brought life, discussions and arguments from unlikely quarters -- guys in suits supporting the cause while "protester types were whining," said Falu.

"I like the way people always had something to say," he said.

Monday night, working the night shift, Falu had heard the police helicopters and watched the park cleared on Occupy Wall Street's website and by reading Twitter updates. It was sad, said Falu. "It's like someone doing it to your house."

A statement put out by supporters of Occupy Wall Street said the eviction would not stop the movement. "We are appalled, but not deterred," it said. "Today we are stronger than we were yesterday. Tomorrow we will be stronger still."

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Photo: Occupy Wall Street supporters gather in a new spot after being cleared from Zuccotti Park in New York. Credit: Nathaniel Popper/Los Angeles Times

In Irene's wake: Relief despite damage and deaths

As Hurricane Irene approached, spectacular satellite images encouraged some to fear the worst. But now, as the weakened storm moseys from New York into New England, you can't see a sigh of relief from outer space.

But that was the overriding sentiment for millions of people on the Eastern Seaboard on Sunday who awoke to widespread flooding, downed trees and the inconvenience of power outages and road closures, but not the catastrophic damage they had feared.

"We did all right,’’ said Hal Denny, mayor of Southern Shores, N.C., a beach town on the Outer Banks, where the worst damage was wrought on trees, dozens of which were uprooted.

Still, Irene was deadly.

PHOTOS: In the path of the storm

"People have lost lives, I don't think you can say we dodged a bullet," said Federal Emergency Management Agency head Craig Fugate.

At least 19 people were killed in various storm-related accidents from Florida to Connecticut, and the death toll was expected to rise. In Harrisburg, Pa., a man sleeping outside with a group of friends died when a tree fell on his tent, police said.

And up to four million power customers, fairly evenly scattered along the hurricane’s path, still had no electricity on Sunday afternoon.

Across the length of the hurricane’s path, hundreds if not thousands of roads remained closed. In New York, authorities reopened tunnels and bridges but the city’s public transportation system remained shut down.

Despite a sense that the emergency was over, authorities warned people in the hardest hit areas to stay in their homes until ground conditions were fully assessed. They also cautioned that Irene still threatened to flood parts of New England as it lumbered northward toward New Brunswick and Nova Scotia.

"I am particularly concerned about downed power lines,” New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie said on the "Today" show. "There is no, no safe place to be outside right now in New Jersey, between downed power lines, flooding. You need to stay in your home."