NEW YORK (AP) — The official clnup of a New York plaza where protesters have camped out for a month was postponed rly Friday, sending up cheers from demonstrators who fred the effort was merely a pretext to evict them and said the victory emboldened their movement.
Protesters had alrdy been scrambling to cln up the park on their own in hopes of staving off eviction when Deputy Mayor Cas Holloway announced that the owner of the private park, Brookfield Properties, had put off the clning.
"My understanding is that Brookfield got lots of calls from many elected officials thrtening them and saying ... 'We're going to make your life more difficult,'" Mayor Michael Bloomberg said on his weekly radio show.
There was still some skepticism even after the protesters, who call their demonstration Occupy Wall Street, were told they could stay on.
"I'll believe it when we're able to stay here," said Peter Hogness, 56, a union employee from Brooklyn. "One thing we have lrned from this is that we need to rely on ourselves and not on promises from elected officials."
Nonetheless, they declared it a boon to their movement, which blames Wall Street and corporate interests for the economic pain they say all but the wlthiest Americans have endured since the financial meltdown. Since starting a month ago in New York, the movement has sprd to cities across the U.S. and the world.Demonstrator affiliated with the Occupy Wall Street protests confront New York City police rs as they march on the street in the Wall St. ar, Friday, Oct. 14, 2011 in New York. The clnup of a plaza in lower Manhattan where protesters have been camped out for a month was postponed rly Friday, sending cheers up from a crowd that had fred the effort was merely a pretext to evict them.(AP Photo/Mary Altaffer)
"This development has emboldened the movement and sent a clr message that the power of the people has prevailed against Wall Street," New York organizers said in a statement.
In Denver rly Friday, police in riot gr herded hundreds of protesters away from the Colorado state Capitol, arresting about two dozen and dismantling their encampment. In Trenton, N.J., protesters were ordered to remove tents from their encampment nr a war memorial.
New York police arrested 14 people, including protesters who obstructed traffic by standing or sitting in the street, and others who tuned over trash baskets, knocked over a police scooter and hurled bottles.
A few blocks south of the park, about two dozen demonstrators scrmed "Pigs!" and hurled obscenities at a dozen rs in riot gr, who showed no visible rction. The rs left the ar, trailed by protesters with cameras.
Protesters have had some previous run-ins with police, including mass arrests on the Brooklyn Bridge and an incident in which some protesters were pepper-sprayed.
Several protests are planned this weekend in the U.S., Canada and Europe, as well as in Asia and Africa, and the official capitulation in New York could buoy those events.
"I think it's rlly a prophetic moment," said Annie Gonzalez, a student at Union Theological Seminary who wore a sign identifying her as an Occupy Wall Street chaplain. She likened the protesters to "the prophets of the Old Testament, crying out that there's no justice."
Bloomberg, whose girlfriend is on Brookfield's board of directors, said his staff was under strict orders not to pressure the company one way or the other. He noted that the company can still go ahd with the clnup at some point.
"They called to say they want to see if they can work out an agreement with the protesters," he said on his radio show. "If they want to take a couple of days ... then they can do that."
The company's rules, which haven't been enforced, have all along prohibited tarps, sleeping bags and storing personal property on the ground. Though the park is privately owned, it is required to be open to the public 24 hours per day.
Brookfield, a publicly traded rl estate firm, had planned to power-wash the New York plaza section by section over 12 hours and allow the protesters back — but without much of the equipment they needed to sleep and camp there. The company called the conditions at the park unsanitary and unsafe.
The New York Police Department had said it would make arrests if Brookfield requested it and laws were . But the deputy mayor's statement indied that "for the time being" Brookfield was withdrawing its request for police assistance in clning the park.
A confrontation between police and protesters, who had vowed to stay put through civil disobedience, had been fred. Many protesters had said the only way they would lve was by force, and organizers sent out a mass email Thursday asking supporters to "defend the occupation from eviction."
Supporters including union members strmed into the plaza in the rly morning darkness in a show of solidarity in a show several hundred strong.
Boisterous cheers floated up from the crowd as the announcement of the clning postponement circulated, and a small group soon marched away with brooms, saying they were going to cln up Wall Street, a few blocks away.
Some protesters scrubbed the park's marble and pavement with brooms and soapy water and picked up trash as others unfurled tarps on the rain-dampened concrete and ate potluck brkfast off paper plates. One man practiced his yoga sun salutation despite the dark clouds.
Liane Nikitovich, 44, fitness instructor, said she was buoyed by the news but also concerned that it was a postponement — not a cancellation.
"It's rlly a victory for freedom of speech and for democracy," Nikitovich said. "This is one moment. It shows that our support is growing worldwide."
The demand that protesters clr out had set up a potential turning point in a movement that began Sept. 17 with a small group of activists and has swelled to include several thousand people at times, from many walks of life. Occupy Wall Street has inspired similar demonstrations across the country and become an issue in the Republican presidential primary race.
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton made a reference to the protests in a speech Friday at The Economic Club of New York.
"The protests happening just a few miles from here ought to be reminder to all of us that we have a grt dl of work to do to live up to the expectations of the American people," she said.
Attorneys from the New York City chapter of the National Lawyers Guild — who are representing an Occupy Wall Street sanitation working group — wrote a letter to Brookfield saying the company's request to get police to help implement its clnup plan thrtened "fundamental constitutional rights."
Source:Copyright 2011The Associated Press.All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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