Park cleaning postponed as Wall Street protesters cheer

The smell of chlorine hung in the air in Zuccotti Park early Friday morning and protesters from the Occupy Wall Street movement cheered loudly after New York City’s deputy mayor said a scheduled cleaning of the protest encampment inside the park had been postponed.

That news came at 6:30 a.m. — a half-hour before the real estate firm, Brookfield Office Properties, planned to begin a section-by-section power-washing of the park because the company called conditions at the park unsanitary and unsafe.

“The people united will never be defeated!” the crowd chanted as word broke.

A jazz band played celebratory music and some protesters marched south down Broadway toward Wall Street. Later, protesters in the park chanted: "Get up, get down, there's revolution in this town."

City Council members Jumaane Williams, Letitia James and Melissa Mark-Viverito were among the politicians on the scene to celebrate. The council had sent a letter to Bloomberg Thursday asking him not to evict the protesters to preserve their assembly and free speech rights.

Mark-Viverito was happy to hear the cleanup has been postponed.

"This is an unbelievably inspiring national and global movement," she said. "To be a part of it is great."

The night before the scheduled cleaning, Wall Street protesters scrubbed, mopped and picked up garbage at the corporate-owned park they have been occupying in an attempt to stave off the scheduled cleanup that demonstrators suspected was a pretext to evict them.

As dawn loomed Friday hundreds of people milled about the park and mops, brooms and trash bags were everywhere.

Passersby could smell the chlorine used for the cleanup.

Deputy Mayor Cas Holloway told ABC News: “Late last night, we received notice from the owners of Zuccotti Park -- Brookfield Properties -- that they are postponing their scheduled cleaning of the park, and for the time being withdrawing their request from earlier in the week for police assistance during their cleaning operation. Our position has been consistent throughout: the City's role is to protect public health and safety, to enforce the law, and guarantee the rights of all New Yorkers. Brookfield believes they can work out an arrangement with the protesters that will ensure the park remains clean, safe, available for public use and that the situation is respectful of residents and businesses downtown, and we will continue to monitor the situation."

Own protester, Steve Sachs, 23, Heightstown, N.J., said he had been at the park cleaning since 1 a.m. and said he was willing to get arrested to protect the park and the movement.

He said neither Brookfield nor the NYPD are enemies or opponents, telling a reporter: "We want to beat them with love, if they want to beat us with hate ... Our generation was raised ... to falsely believe that people were meant to compete. We're meant to help one another."

Another protester at the park, Ryan Gaffrey, 22, of Brooklyn, said: "It's not about getting arrested, it's about making the changes that will benefit society after you die.

"We can further the point that this is not about defiance."

The two were amongest the hundreds of protesters gathered in early morning darkness in anticipation of the pending action by the city. Many had not slept and were busy cleaning on their own while a light rain fell. The group's sanitation team had hired a private garbage truck to pick up discarded curbside garbage.

Dozens of people, including a man in a Santa Claus suit, tossed out trash and used thick brooms and water from buckets to sweep the concrete.

A few people hunkered down under tarps but few slept. Police kept a low profile — a couple of officers walked through the encampment while other police sat in vans Thursday evening but did not remain through the night.

Before it was announced that the cleaning had been postponed, the company said protesters will be allowed to return after the cleanup, but regulations that had been ignored earlier will be enforced.

No more tarps, no more sleeping bags, no more storing personal property on the ground. In other words, no more camping out for the Occupy Wall Street protesters, who have been living at the lower Manhattan park for weeks. The park is privately owned but is required to be open to the public 24 hours per day.

The demand that protesters clear out sets up a turning point in a movement that began Sept. 17 with a small group of activists and has swelled to include several thousand people at times, from many walks of life. Occupy Wall Street has inspired similar demonstrations across the country and become an issue in the Republican presidential primary race.

The protesters' demands are wide-ranging, but they are united in blaming Wall Street and corporate interests for the economic pain they say all but the wealthiest Americans have endured since the financial meltdown.

A spokesman for Mayor Michael Bloomberg, whose girlfriend is a member of Brookfield's board of directors, said Brookfield has requested the city's assistance in maintaining the park.

"We will continue to defend and guarantee their free speech rights, but those rights do not include the ability to infringe on the rights of others," Bloomberg spokesman Marc La Vorgna said, "which is why the rules governing the park will be enforced."

Many protesters said the only way they would leave is by force. Organizers sent out a mass email Thursday asking supporters to "defend the occupation from eviction."

Nicole Carty, a 23-year-old from Atlanta, hoped the group's cleaning effort would stave off any confrontation.

"We tell them, 'Hey the park is clean, there's no need for you to be here,'" she said. "If they insist on coming in, we will continue to occupy the space."

But a young protester wearing Revolutionary War-style tri-cornered hat said some among the group don't realize "you gotta follow the law."
Gabriel Brown, 28, slowly pushed a shopping cart of his stuff away from the park. He planned to stash it nearby for safety in case of a showdown with authorities.

"Sometimes you need to lose a battle to win a war," he said.

Brown said he lost his job at McDonalds a month ago. He spent the past week and a half sleeping at the park and protesting, but he didn't want the end to be ugly.

"You've got a lot of amateurs here ...," he said. "I tell people don't block the pedestrian traffic, keep a Bill of Rights handy and be respectful of police. I'm for the rule of law, not chaos."

Protesters have had some run-ins with police, but mass arrests on the Brooklyn Bridge and an incident in which some protesters were pepper-sprayed seemed to energize their movement.

The New York Police Department said it will make arrests if Brookfield requests it and laws are broken. Brookfield would not comment on how it will ensure that protesters do not try to set up camp again, only saying that the cleaning was necessary.

Bill de Blasio, the city's public advocate, expressed concern over the city's actions as he inspected the park Thursday afternoon and listened to protesters' complaints.

"This has been a very peaceful movement by the people," he said. "I'm concerned about this new set of policies. At the very least, the city should slow down."

Attorneys from the New York City chapter of the National Lawyers Guild — who are representing an Occupy Wall Street sanitation working group — have written a letter to Brookfield saying the company's request to get police to help implement its cleanup plan threatens "fundamental constitutional rights."

"There is no basis in the law for your request for police intervention, nor have you cited any," the attorneys wrote in a letter Thursday to Brookfield CEO Richard B. Clark.

The protest has led sympathetic groups in other cities to stage their own local rallies and demonstrations: Occupy Boston, Occupy Cincinnati, Occupy Houston, Occupy Los Angeles, Occupy Philadelphia, Occupy Providence, Occupy Salt Lake and Occupy Seattle, among them.

Occupy Seattle protesters running a live video feed from their corporate power protest at Seattle's Westlake Park said police started making arrests Thursday. Police confirmed that 10 people were arrested. City law bans camping in parks.

The situation was tense near Colorado's state Capitol early Friday, where hundreds of Occupy Denver protesters had been told to clear out or risk arrest.

Police warned about 3 a.m. (5 a.m. EDT) that they would start clearing the park, but no arrests had been made yet.

Several protests are planned this weekend across the U.S. and Canada, and European activists are also organizing.