Seen & Heard: OWS in Winter Garden

••• Boomerang Toys has a Letters to Santa mailbox at its Tribeca location: “For every letter a child drops in the mailbox, we will donate $1 to UNICEF. (Hanukkah letters welcome too).”

••• Two updates on the coat-drive question: “Janovic on Spring and 6th participates in a coat drive every year,” says Anna. And this from Kellee: “Just walked by the 1st Precinct police station (Beach & Varick) and they are doing a coat drive. Drop off right inside.”

••• “Do you know if the fine folks collecting compost will be continuing to operate through the winter at the Saturday Greenmarket?” asked reader Heather Church. “It would be a shame to lose them.” The word is that compost will continue through February: “It’s all based on donations and funding so the date keeps getting pushed forward,” says the Greenmarket rep. (Heather also had this to say: “Tribeca has not been a big contributor. Consider urban composting. Drop off is at the north end of the Saturday Greenmarket.”)

••• It turns out that Super Linda may not be opening till January (with a few private events before then).

••• From reader Hudson River: “About 10 a.m., a large group of Occupy Wall Street demonstrators moved into the Winter Garden and began a loud protest, dancing, drumming and chanting, unfurling their banner from the south balcony. (Sorry I don’t have any pix of that; I considered finishing my hot chocolate to be of greater importance and was too close to get any good pix.) [A reporter after my own heart!] After 10 minutes or so, they started moving out of the Winter Garden and I took the escalator to the balcony, where I could see people being handcuffed, some of them after being wrestled to the floor. Then the police came along and told everyone to leave the balcony so I walked around past the staircase. The police were congregating at the foot of the staircase and eventually they told everyone to leave that area too.” Here are Hudson River’s pix, taken after the crowd had dispersed but as the police were making arrests:

 

5 Comments

  1. This morning, about 30 OWS protesters, armed with posters and a drum stood/marched on Vesey between the Goldman Sachs building and the World Financial Center. They were met by HUNDREDS of NYPD, dozens of squad cars, and lots of private security. The walkways in front of Goldman and the Shack Shack walkway were shut to everyone (including residents of the neighborhood) but Goldman employees. The militarized feel and aggravating longer walk for me was worth it because those precious GS employees are creating jobs and making the world a better place for all of us!

  2. The buildings and police did a great job of keeping everything calm. As someone who lives in TriBeCa & works in the WFC I appreciate their efforts & many times thankless job.

  3. NYTimes City Blog has some video, although their account doesn’t quite concur with what I saw: looked like the protesters and police entered from the passageway from the food court; there were already police in the WG when the protesters arrived; and the police formed a barrier around them and let them do their dance/drum thing before they started arresting.

  4. Erik – thanks for supporting the cause and for your AWESOME work!!!

  5. Come on, people–compost! It is easy, doesn’t require any thought once you get used to putting veg scraps in a container, and takes up very little space in the fridge or freezer. And it does a lot more than OWS will ever accomplish.