It was a mellow scene at Zucotti Park in Manhattan on Saturday, as the rain drizzled down on protesters who have been occupying the park for more than two weeks. This is not merely a bunch of kids; there were people of all ages. I personally met three different people who said they were grandmothers. The park is owned by a real estate development company, so the protests cannot be cleared without its consent — which it has not given yet. Let’s hope its liability insurance carrier keeps its cool. At about 3 pm yesterday, a few thousand people headed over to the Brooklyn Bridge. The New York Times reported on its Cityroom blog, “After allowing marchers from the Occupy Wall Street protests to claim the Brooklyn-bound car lanes of the Brooklyn Bridge and get partway across, the police cut the marchers off and plunged into the crowd and began making arrests.” About 700 were taken into police custody. Those who crossed via the pedestrian walkway above (including our photographer) were not caught in the trap.
As for the Tony Bologna pepper spray incident last week, the immune system known as Jon Stewart took care of that one.