 |
Mayor
Antonio R. Villaraigosa of Los Angeles said Friday that the city's
protest
encampment would be closed down by Monday.
(Photo: Danny
Moloshok/Reuters)
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PHILADELPHIA
— Cooperative is the word usually used here to describe the relationship
between the campers of Occupy Philadelphia and the city, a birthplace of the
constitutional right to free speech and assembly.
The
arguments and arrests that have occurred at protests in New York and other
cities have been largely absent. Mayor Michael A. Nutter even visited the
encampment on its first night and pledged to work with the movement when
possible.
But the
limits of that cooperation are about to be tested. Following the example of
other cities that have taken steps to evict the Occupy camps, Mr. Nutter,
citing health and safety concerns and an imminent construction project, said
the protesters must pack up and leave the steps of City Hall by Sunday evening.
“We cannot
allow current conditions, including masses of tents and 24-hour-a-day camping,
to continue,” Mr. Nutter said at a news conference on Friday.
Saturday,
however, looked nothing like a moving day at the plaza, where protesters said
the deadline had focused the local movement’s otherwise disorganized energies.
“Having this kind of pressure is a good thing,” Michael Pierce, 50, a member of
Occupy Philadelphia’s information working group, said between conversations
with campers and the occasional lost tourist looking for the Reading Terminal
Market or Rittenhouse Square.
“Without
some of the struggles that the other cities have had, we’ve been sitting
around, drinking coffee,” Mr. Pierce said. “This is bringing us back together.”
On
Saturday, amid unseasonably warm temperatures, informal brainstorming and an
“eviction planning meeting” took place.Come Sunday, should the protesters
accept the city’s proposal for a part-time occupation across the street,
bringing a new phase of the movement without overnight camping? Should they
stay at the site, inviting an attention-getting confrontation with the police?
Or should they join a march of the homeless to a nearby rail yard? (Dennis
Payne, a homeless man who was spreading the word about the march, said he
wanted to move other homeless people “out of the way” of a potential clash.)
“This is a
village trying to determine where to go next,” said Chris Goldstein, a member
of a public relations group for Occupy Philadelphia, who expects some to leave
and some to stay on Sunday.
Partly
joking, Mr. Pierce said he would like to see protesters move to Rittenhouse
Square, one of the city’s wealthiest pockets. There, he said, “a lot more of
the right kind of people would get annoyed.”
Similar
conversations were taking place in Los Angeles, where Mayor Antonio R.
Villaraigosa said Friday that protesters, who had been allowed to remain on the
lawn outside City Hall for almost two months, had to disperse by 12:01 a.m.
Monday. In Philadelphia, Mr. Nutter gave the group a deadline of 5 p.m. Sunday.
Dilworth Plaza, where hundreds have been staying since Oct. 6, is about to
become a construction site. Mr. Nutter, adopting the movement’s language, said
the project would be “built by the 99 percent for the 99 percent.”
Some of the
protesters said they were aware when they set up their tents in October that
the construction project — a $50 million refurbishment that will replace the
concrete plaza with green space and, in the winters, an ice skating rink —
might be imminent. That they chose to set up there anyway set off one of the
initial disagreements within the movement.
“All along,
like in other cities, there have been factions that have wanted to compromise
with the authorities and factions that have wanted to be more disruptive,” said
Jim MacMillan, a journalist-in-residence at Swarthmore College who has observed
the occupation since the beginning.
After about
a month, city officials started to speak about what they considered unsanitary
conditions at the site. Police were called on Nov. 12 after a female protester
said she was sexually assaulted in her tent.
On
Saturday, there were about 250 tents still at the site, although one group,
which calls itself Reasonable Solutions, pulled out recently. Will Tucker, 33,
one of the organizers of Reasonable Solutions, said he felt that some of the
other protesters were “looking for conflict” and refusing to communicate with
the city.
Last week,
the city approved a demonstration permit for Mr. Tucker’s group and rejected
one submitted by a rival organization, which led to accusations that Reasonable
Solutions had been co-opted. The new permit, effective Monday, allows for
protests at a plaza across the street from City Hall, but only between 9 a.m.
and 7 p.m. No overnight activity would be allowed, though three daytime tents
and an office trailer would be.
Referring
to overnight camping, Mr. Tucker said, “We thought that wouldn’t be logical in
the wintertime anyway.”
Others,
however, have vowed to try to stay at the plaza 24 hours a day, just as
protesters in other cities have.
At a
Methodist church festooned with Christmas trimmings several dozen protesters
met on Saturday afternoon and discussed potential responses to the eviction.
Some suggested a sit-down protest to show nonviolent resistance. Others
recommended holding hands around the plaza. One person said that whatever they
do, they should coordinate with the Los Angeles protesters so that they appear
united before the television cameras in each city.
Given the
peaceful history of the local protests, Mr. MacMillan said he thought that some
would resist the eviction on Sunday, but that the number would be small. He
predicted that the police would not clear the plaza until after the 11 p.m.
local newscasts.
In the
meantime, said Dave Burnett, 38, a protester who is a meat clerk at a local
grocery store, “it’s a great advertisement for us.”
“It’s one
of those protests we don’t have to organize,” he said. “The city’s doing
it for us.”
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