Philly Gets Occupied, Wells Fargo Gets Served (Almost)

PHILADELPHIA - What to make of this? That is the question a lot of people, not just reporters, are asking themselves lately. What to make of this “occupation” of America, one that originated in Canada. That’s how this whole thing started, in a Canadian magazine called "Adbusters."

The story goes that last month the liberal magazine put out a call for protests against Wall Street. New York’s first Occupy Wall Street rally took place Sept. 17. From there it spread like a warm patchwork quilt, or cancer, depending on your vantage point. In the past few weeks, similar movements have cropped up in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, and Florida.

On Monday, I decided to check out the occupation of Dilworth Plaza outside City Hall in Philadelphia. During that first visit, I asked people why they had come to the rally; the next day, I went back to talk to organizers about the daily operations at the makeshift campsite on the plaza.

Wednesday saw me standing outside a on South Broad Street waiting for protestors from the campsite to arrive; they were coming to present a bill for the financial damages they claim the city and the school district incurred by Wells Fargo swap agreements totaling millions of dollars of taxpayer money.

They marched down Broad Street beating drums and chanting “Give it back,” meaning the $63 million they say the bank owes the city.

Police and security guards stood by or stayed in patrols cars with their lights spinning. The bank shuttered its doors until the mob dispersed. Reporters scribbled behind their notebooks or they stood in front of television cameramen preparing for a live feed. When it was over the sidewalks cleared, the protesters marched back toward City Hall, and the bank’s doors reopened - like nothing happened.

But something did happen. And it’s still happening. Somewhere right this moment. How long will it last? What do they want? Depends on who you ask. Here are some of the people who gave me answers.    

Oct. 10 (Day 5 of Occupy Philly):

The first person I meet is a 47-year-old man named Derek. He stands across from Dilworth Plaza on the corner of Market and 15th streets holding up a sign announcing that 25 million Americans are unemployed. He is one of them. Derek says he worked at Cooper Hospital in New Jersey until he lost his job due to budget cuts. Instead of paying for the war in Afghanistan, Derek says he’d rather the U.S. government use that money to help people in this country.

“I think America needs to start working on their own people here,” he says. “There’s too many people that’s unemployed, too many people that are homeless, too many people out here in America that don’t have health care.”

Derek also says there is a threat to Social Security coming from Tea Party conservatives in Congress when more senior citizens “are barely making it now.”

“I don’t see the cost of living going down. I see rich people getting rich, and poor people getting poor. The middle class can barely survive,” he continues. “People like the Carnegies, the Rothchilds, the Rockefellers, and Bill Gates, people like that, you know, they do good things, but the whole point is that, you know, if the rich just keeping getting rich and they’re getting these tax breaks for the wealthy people in this country, what’s going to happen to the poor? It’s not very beneficial for anybody.”

Soon, we are joined by another Philadelphia resident, a 62-year-old unemployed financial advisor who worked for investment companies. “One of those people that the unemployed and these people are hating,” she says after saying hello to Derek.

She’s been unemployed for nine months. She heard about the rally last week on television. A few days later she went to a “logistics meeting” at a church on Arch Street. The next day, Oct. 6, the occupation of Dilworth Plaza started. The woman, who declined to give her name, says she has come down here every day since then.

“It’s very, very organized,” she says. “The media is pegging these people on television as they’re aimless. I don’t think so. They do have an aim. But like I said, when people have jobs they see things differently.”

I walk across 15th Street toward the plaza where people are standing on the sidewalks and gutters holding up signs to the sound of car horns and cheers from passers-by. One man’s sign reads, “Honk if you are BROKE!!” He and the other demonstrators are met by a cacophony of horns from cars, trucks, motorcycles, buses.

A municipal garbage truck passes by and drowns out the sound of the others with a blast of his horn. Another man holds a sign that simply says “VOTE!” But what’s an occupation without diversity?

Witness another sign: “Phire Andy Reid.” Finally, a cause the entire country can get behind.

On the plaza stairs, I meet Lolita, a black woman who looks to be in her mid-30s. She says today is her only day off this week. She’d rather not tell me where she works, but she did bring along her 7-year-old daughter Carlita, who sits on the steps making a sign with black marker on white cardboard.

The girl’s beaded braids hang down from her head as she writes, “What about ME!!” She holds the sign up for a picture. “She’s the future,” Lolita says of her daughter. She isn’t the only parent with a child at the rally.

In the center of the plaza, between two walls of concrete planters, one finds the “Family Area.” Taped to one of the walls is a handmade welcome sign. “This space is for children and their families + friends,” it reads. “Breastfeeding welcome!” Nearby a woman is blowing bubbles at an infant who claps his hands in the air to break them.

Among the items scattered on the ground is a rocking horse, along with baby toys, and games, and lined against the wall are little pink tents with flowers on them.  

Back on the stairs, Lolita says she came to the rally not just for her daughter, but also as a show of solidarity with the other protesters.

“This is going to wake up a lot of people. They are sending a message to the leaders in Washington,” she says. “We the people put you there, so we the people expect you to do something.”

Inside a tent marked “Library,” Mary Elizabeth Newsom is organizing the shelves. People come in, sign out books and hopefully return them by occupation’s end. She sits on the library board. There are other boards to serve on, such as the arts committee, but Newsom, a 29-year-old legal librarian in Philadelphia, prefers to work around books.

“I came here because I felt complacent. For the past 10 or 15 years I have been politically sleeping,” she says. How long will she stay? “This is going to last until there is a change,” she replies. “Enough people understand that we are in dire straits.”     

Oct. 11:

What to make of this? Is it a rally, a protest, a demonstration, an urban camp site? It’s all of these, but more. At least that is what I’m told by one of the volunteers named Gregory.

He won’t tell me his last name. He says last names aren’t of any real value to society and his doesn’t reveal anything about who he truly is. OK, Gregory. What is Occupy Philly?

“An occupation,” Gregory replies. “We’re here for as long as it takes.”

How long is that?

“Until the World Bank, the IMF, and the rest of them get out of our way and let us live in peace,” he says. “We grew up watching the videos from the 1999 WTO protests in Seattle. I’ve been to G20 protests, IMF protests in D.C., World Bank marches. We have been here for as long as it takes. Occupy Philly didn’t create this demand for change, this is just another form of this kind of protest.”

Thank you, Gregory.

At the media tent, I talk with Walbert Young, a photojournalism student at Temple. I ask how food and water is provided to the campsite. What about personal hygiene? Where do people go the bathroom? Et cetera.

“Food donations come mostly from local businesses, but also private donations,” Young says. “We put food orders on our Facebook page and people deliver it.”

“We put out an urgent call for water," he says. "Two hours later four pallets of water arrived. The north side of City Hall is a loading zone. That’s where people drop off their donations.”

Where do people go to the bathroom?

“There are port-a-potties scattered around, but we’re trying to get more,” he says. “The city won’t place them on public property, only private property. So we’re looking for some private owners who might be willing to help us out.”

The occupiers don’t count the Ritz-Carlton across the street as an ally. Young says the hotel has banned them from the building after several protestors tried using the bathrooms in the lobby.

He estimates there are between 400 to 500 people taking part in the Philadelphia occupation.

“Yesterday we counted 96 tents, but there are several people staying in these tents at a time, and that’s not counting the homeless,” he says. “One guy was in a sleeping bag sleeping in a tree. We didn’t count him either.”

But being counted is part of what this movement is about. A common refrain throughout the campsite, on signs or in speeches, is, “We are the 99 percent” - versus the wealthiest 1 percent of Americans. 

I ask Young what the protesters hope to accomplish.

“We’re trying to get a list of demands together, but right now we’re here for the demonstration,” he says. “I’ve waited four years to get involved in something like this.”

As for the police, Young says they are being “very nice... so far.”

Oct. 12 (the march on Wells Fargo):

Dennis Spain of Action United Philadelphia stands on the sidewalk in front of Wells Fargo on South Broad Street shouting to the crowd through a megaphone. The call and response varies from “Give it back!” to “They got bailed out! We got sold out!”

The bill to collect the $63 million the protesters claim Wells Fargo owes the city and the school district was to be delivered in person, but security guards shuttered the doors to the bank.

Several parents with children in the school district make speeches, but it’s hard to hear them over the din of the crowd. A few minutes pass and Spain motions for the crowd to quiet down.

He points a finger at the street and the protesters heed his command. They line up in the street, the drum corps starts up again, and the march continues back toward City Hall.

The traffic in the streets and on the sidewalk returns to normal, as the sound of the drum beats and the chants fades away.