Plague Journal, Day 109: Occupying City Hall

Monday: The Girlfriend and I ride bikes among scattered traffic on the Brooklyn Bridge to check out the “Occupy City Hall” protest. 

Organized by Vocal-NY, the demonstration — modeled after the 2011 Zuccotti Park “Occupy Wall Street” movement — aims to push the City Council and mayor to redirect $1 billion of the New York Police Department’s $6 billion annual budget toward education, youth and social services. A few hundred folks have been camping for a week in the southwest end of the small City Hall Park; the budget deadline is Tuesday.

We dismount, walk our bikes through a gap in metal police barricades along Centre Street, find an empty barricade where we can lock them. It’s late afternoon, muggy, thunderstorms in the offing. Perhaps 250 people — virtually all under 30, maybe two in three white, all masked — sit on the plaza pavement: chatting, scrolling through phones, drawing protest signs on cardboard. Lines of bored cops surround the park on all sides, outside the barricades.

As we lock up, a Black man strolls up to a barricade, blows a whistle repeatedly near a middle-aged, pot-bellied white man standing outside, in sunglasses, shorts, plain green T-shirt, talking on a phone. Three or four campers rise, approach the white man as the organizer continues to blow his whistle. The white guy stays on his phone, walks slowly south along Centre Street, accompanied by three, two, finally just one woman holding toward him a “Black Trans Lives Matter” sign, shadowing his walk from inside the barricade. 

“Undercover cop?” I wonder. The Girlfriend shrugs. 

As we finish locking the organizer approaches, blows his whistle a couple of times; no one responds. He looks us over; he’s probably 6’4”, broad-torsoed, soft-faced, thin line of beard outlining his large jaw. 

“First time here?” he asks.

“It is,” I say. 

He holds out his arms for a hug. I step toward him, hesitate, hear The Girlfriend say “No!” behind me.

“I can’t hug you,” I say. “I would, but the coronavirus.” 

He nods, looks disappointed.

“We’re careful about new visitors,” he says, his voice a thin rasp. “Especially people carrying backpacks.” He gestures to mine. “You could be a cop. You could be carrying weapons.” 

“I’m not a cop,” I say. “You’re welcome to look in my bag,” shaking it from one shoulder. 

“I don’t need to see,” he says. “Is that your wife?”

“Girlfriend.” 

He nods. His eyes look sleepy. “Everything in the zone is free,” he says, his voice struggling to rise above a whisper; I imagine he’s been shouting for days. “We don’t charge for anything. We have water, snacks, bathrooms, phone-charging stations. We’re a peaceful community, protesting the police state. Does that work for you?” 

“It does.” 

“You’re here to listen? To stay peaceful?” 

“We are.” 

“All right, man.” He moves on. 

We find an empty cement patch, sit on “#Black Lives Matter” graffiti scrawled in black. Graffiti covers most of the cement, the only alteration to property I can see aside from ubiquitous cardboard signs, some warning us not to film. R&B music, not too loud, plays on speakers near what looks like one of three or four organizers’ tents. The vibe: sleepy. We’ve arrived during a lull. 

The Girlfriend sees Jawanza James Williams, Vocal-NY’s director of organizing and the main force behind Occupy City Hall; she knows him from HIV-AIDS actions, walks over to meet him. He’s pacing, talking on the phone; she tries to get his attention, but he turns his back, walks away. She comes back.

“With your mask, you must have struck him like a random, crazy white lady,” I say. 

“Probably,” she says, as she types him a text message. 

At this density, there’s no way to stay physically distanced. After a couple of minutes we stand, decide to walk around. A few evidently homeless folks wander; most everyone else stays seated, waiting for we don’t know what. 

A young white woman takes over the microphone. She's from Connecticut, she says, “the state with the greatest income disparity between whites and Blacks.” She’s a theatre and dance student, humbled to address this crowd, to amplify the message of Blacks “whose pain I can’t even begin to imagine.” 

She wants to sing a song she’s written about liberal white men. “I don’t hate them,” she says. “I don’t hate anybody. I love all of you. But sometimes liberal men just don’t get it.” I think it’s a parody sung to the tune of “It’s Raining Men,” the Weather Girls’ 1979 song, but I’m not sure. The lyrics are woke, her voice strained, the crowd attention scattered.

We decide it’s time to go. 

It’s the first #BLM action I’ve been eager to depart. At every other demonstration we’ve been able to move, stay on the fringes, keep distance between us and other protesters. Those demonstrations felt like celebrations; we were glad to be together, raise voices in protest, show faith in a just cause. 

Minders of the zone are, reasonably, concerned about troublemakers, undercover cops. But I found the whistle-blowing off-putting. It gave the space a charge of distrust, a current of violence humming beneath the somnolence. Also, at no other protest have I heard white folks performing wokeness. 

As we ride north we see a white guy, casual clothes, multiply tattooed, yelling amicably across Centre Street to a line of cops. 

“Look at you now!” one cop says. 

“Look at me now,” the man responds. 

“What are you doing these days?” 

“Security for Fox News,” the man says. “Let me tell you, they need the help.” 

We ride into SoHo, where multiple stores in the first week of protests were looted. Many of the plywood boards installed to replace shattered glass have been decorated, some imaginatively, some dutifully, some desultorily. I take a few pictures, but it’s not much of a scene. We could grab a drink here — restaurants are open for outdoor seating, and, still before 5 p.m., patrons are few. Instead we decide to ride back to Brooklyn. 

We take the Manhattan Bridge. Air’s starting to cool, but rain seems far off. The bridge has sparse bike traffic, a few pedestrians, a couple of scooters, only one subway train in each direction. We come south along Ashland Place, dismount, walk up DeKalb Avenue, find a bar that has a half-dozen occupied, distanced tables, find an empty bench, order. (Negroni for the Girlfriend; mango lemonade spiked with mezcal for me.) 

It’s hot; we’re sweaty; the drinks are welcome. Though we remain wary, it’s nice to be outside among people. 

Two white teenagers, one wearing a T-shirt for a punk-rock festival, walk by with bikes. Soon there’s a kerfuffle: four Black teens are interacting with them; there’s chatter back and forth we can’t make out. They’re all young, maybe 13 or 15; it’s not especially hostile; seems like kids being kids. A bearded white man rides up on a bike, dismounts, gets in the face of one of the Black kids.

“You need to back off,” he says to the Black kids. “You two, go inside,” he says to the white kids. “Walk away.” 

I peg the man as father to at least one of the white kids. His accent sounds Eastern European, maybe Russian. “Walk away,” he repeats, but the boys don’t move; they’re looking down, vaguely embarrassed. 

The Black kids seem bemused; one addresses the man. “We’re not doing nothing. We didn’t do nothing.” 

“I’m calling the cops,” the man says.

“That’s bullshit,” the Black kid says. “We didn’t hit nobody. Nothing happened.” 

The man pulls out his phone, dials. 

A couple of the Black kids start to run.

“Don’t run,” the one kid says. "I’m not running. I didn’t do nothing.” They all start walking.

The man talks on his phone. It seems a bad moment to call the police on a group of Black boys who, from what we could tell, were at most posturing.

“None of that seemed threatening,” The Girlfriend says. “They’re children.” 

We finish our drinks, ride home, walk inside seconds before skies open up. For 15 minutes rain comes in sheets; The Girlfriend’s son later says Flatbush was pelted with hail. I think of the City Hall Park denizens, am thankful to be under a roof.