Occupy Wall Street parties near Bloomberg’s doorstep

• Tweet
• 
• 

• Tweet

A group of Occupy Wall Street protesters left their familiar haunts in Lower Manhattan on Sunday to hold an “Occupy Bloomberg’s Mansion Drum Circle Protest And Love-In Art Show,” located almost — if not quite — on the mayor’s doorstep.

The protest and round-the-clock drum circle had originally been planned to be held right under the windows of New York Mayor Bloomberg’s Upper East Side townhouse. Police blocked access to that section of 79th Street, however, so the protesters set up shop half a block away, on the sidewalk just outside Central Park.

There they played their horns and drums, displayed their signs and some of the books destroyed in a police raid on Zuccotti Park earlier in the week, and generally partied in the unseasonably warm November weather.

According to @NewYorkist, an informal count showed close to 400 protesters in attendance.

“He paid us a visit, now we are paying him a visit,” one demonstrator explained.It was not known, however, whether Bloomberg was actually in residence.

“Bloomberg made a big mistake kicking the protesters out — now they’re everywhere,” teacher Marian Swerdlow told the Daily News. “It’s going to keep spreading. He’ll see that this movement has support. He has to start treating people with respect.”

Not everyone was pleased with the protest, however. “All I can say about Mayor Bloomberg, good or bad, he’s earned his own money,” one local resident asserted. “And that’s what we don’t know — what these people have been doing, besides complaining.”

The police keeping a watchful eye on the event were not thrilled either. One was overheard to say, “I’ve been here all fucking day. This sucks.”

Photo from AFP.