Sunday, March 25th, 2012. New York City – Occupy Town Square IV was at Fort Greene Park in Brooklyn, NYC. It was a raining day but the rain didn’t stop people from coming to the park.
OWS protesters and other people attended the event. They had music, food, information tables, teach-ins, trainings, and political discussions.
Domingo, 25 de Marzo, 2012. Ciudad de Nueva York – Occupy Town Square IV se realizó en Fort Greene Park en Brooklyn. Fué un día lluvioso, sin embargo la lluvia no detuvo a la gente para venir al parque.
Manifestantes de Ocupa Wall Street y otras personas vinieron y participaron en los talleres y demás actividades que se realizaron.
According to the facebook page event of the organizers, “starting early this year, mobile, daytime occupations, called Occupy Town Squares, are being held in parks and other public spaces around New York City. With info tables, teach-ins, trainings, and political discussions, each event seeks to recreate the spirit of occupation and reclaim our public commons in the fullest possible sense: for the purposes of democratic civic engagement, to strengthen our communities, share our resources and to broaden and deepen our connections with public space and with one another. Whether you consider yourself a supporter of the movement or not, we want to meet you: come share your ideas and stories, learn about the movement, argue with us, debate with us, collaborate with us.”
One of the groups at the “Occupy Town Square IV” was GooseWatch NYC. The mission of GooseWatch NYC is to publicize, condemn, and ultimately end the NYC Goose Removal contract with USDA.
GooseWatch NYC also plans to monitor geese in every possible place in NYC in order to keep track of their populations and well-being throughout the year, and during molting season to organize monitoring groups across the City in order to witness, document, and discourage round-ups.
A protester gave me a flyer with this info: Spring Awakening. Occupy New York City people’s assembly. Saturday, April 14th. 1pm. springawakening2012.wordpress.com
Fort Greene Park is a municipal park in Brooklyn, New York City.
The park includes the high ground where the Continental Army built Fort Putnam during the American Revolutionary War. The site was chosen and the construction supervised by General Nathanael Greene. During the War of 1812, when the possibility of a British invasion led to the re-use of the site for defense, the newly rebuilt fortification was named Fort Greene in his honor.
In 1847, the site became Brooklyn’s first park under the name of Washington Park. Walt Whitman, then the editor of the Brooklyn Eagle, was a strong advocate of claiming the space for a public park. In the 1860s, Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux, who also designed Central Park and Prospect Park, prepared a design for the park. Its name was changed to Fort Greene Park in 1896.
One of the park’s distinctive features is the Prison Ship Martyrs’ Monument. During the Revolutionary War, the British had kept American prisoners on ships in Wallabout Bay under terrible conditions. Around 11,500 prisoners died from disease and malnutrition. Olmsted and Vaux envisioned a crypt to hold their remains, with an appropriate monument. The crypt was built, and the remains of the prisoners were re-interred there in 1873. There was also a small monument. Eventually, funds were raised for a larger monument. The architectural firm of McKim, Mead, and White won a design competition, and the monument was unveiled in 1908. It is a 149 foot (44 m) high granite Doric column over the crypt. At the top is an eight ton urn.
Occupy Town Square Statement of Intent & Guidelines
To fellow neighbors, the local parks department, government officials, and the press:
This is an open notice of self-permitting by the self-organized informal group known as Occupy Town Square an affinity group with Occupy Wall Street (OWS). Being part of a people’s movement without legal identity, we cannot hold a permit for an event. Moreover, the loose, informal, and boundless structure of OWS is incompatible with the concepts of personal and organizational liability on which this city’s permitting system is based.
Unable, therefore, to sign on to a permit, we commit to follow its spirit. We commit to uphold the sanctity of the commons, to maintain the cleanliness, safety, and beauty of our public spaces, to guard them from vandalism, to use them peaceably, and to share them lovingly with our fellow citizens.
For too long the contests over public space have been resolved on the side of top-down control, passive use, and commodified consumption. We need to broaden the notion of public culture, public space, and public commons. We need to reclaim and re-invent the purpose and relationship of democratic public space as we advocate for our cause. We cannot be content, no matter how high the general standard of living may be, if some fraction of our people— whether it be one-third or one-fifth or one-tenth— is ill-fed, ill-clothed, ill-housed, and insecure. Communities in need are not free communities.
In calling these events, we relinquish them to the unpredictable river of city life– they are no longer “our” events, but the broad-based decentralized Occupy movement’s events, the people’s events. Read more here.
Ed Goldman, retired teacher and resident of Fort Greene since 1966, said “The Occupy Movement has sparked a new enthusiasm for activism. It has energized many people around the city and offers the possibility of bringing people together to work for peace and justice and to build a better world.”
Occupy Town Square activist Dr. Lucky Tran stated, “As a Vietnamese refugee, I have always been exhilarated to see people from diverse backgrounds coming together to build a common vision of a more equitable society.”
Accorfing to the press release of NYCGA.net “While there have been violent attacks on the Occupy Movement by the NYPD in November and this past week, Occupy Town Square is one of many actions that demonstrate the movement’s dedication to claiming public space for learning, free expression, and peaceful public debate. This is the fourth Occupy Town Square event, following those at Washington Square Park, West Park Church, and Tompkins Square Park.
Fort Greene, on the site of Brooklyn’s first park, is located in a neighborhood with a long history of fighting for equality and justice and struggling under the changes of gentrification. Through real estate speculation, mortgage fraud and political influence, Wall Street and big banks threaten whole communities and affect the lives of New Yorkers. Occupy Town Square opens new public space for interaction among people from a range of economic circumstances, enabling community members to collaborate and act to shape the future of their families and neighborhoods. This event will include workshops and teach ins to address issues like racially biased policing practices, the causes of poor public school education, gentrification, the need for truly affordable housing, and food justice.”
