Occupying Wall Street

In the early hours of Tuesday November 15th the Occupy Wall Street camp in New York was destroyed when police swept suddenly into the square, tearing down the tents, library, kitchen and medical center, and arresting hundreds. Already an extraordinary instant history of Occupy Wall Street from its inception on September 17th right up to its forced dispersal that night has been assembled by Writers for the 99%, a group of active supporters of the movement. Occupying Wall Street: The inside story of an action that changed America is all the more remarkable for the way it has been assembled - using the consensus methods of Zuccotti Park in open editorial meetings at the site itself. Occupying Wall Street draws on extensive interviews with those who took part in the action to bring an authentic, inside-the-square history to life. It describes in rich detail how the protest was devised and planned, how its daily needs were met, and how it won support across America. In a vivid, fast-paced narrative, the key events of the occupation are described: the pepper spraying of young women corralled between plastic fences by the NYPD; the mass arrests on the Brooklyn Bridge; the victory on October 14th when an announced "clean up" of the square was abandoned by a mayor's office fearful of a PR disaster; and the eventual storming of the occupation that brought it to an abrupt end. Woven throughout are stories of life in the square focusing on how the kitchen, library, media center, clean-up, hospital, and decision-making at the General Assembly functioned, all in the words of the people who were there.