OCCUPY WALL STREET

It’s hard to believe that two weeks ago, this place was occupied by protesters — that the walls were covered in graffiti, the windows blocked with hand-painted signs, the escalators barricaded. But it was indeed occupied, and thanks to the administration, it stayed occupied for an entire week.

Protesters from the City University of New York Graduate Center held a General Assembly meeting Friday evening at their 35th Street campus building, in light of Thursday’s Global Day of Action and the ongoing All-City Student Occupation at the New School’s Student Study Center. At the meeting, CUNY students discussed how to move forward with their own protest and debated their relationship with other city universities, and the New School in particular. Students announced plans to hold a future GA meeting and teach-in at the occupied New School space, located at 90 Fifth Avenue, which has been occupied since Thursday afternoon with students from CUNY, NYU, the New School, Columbia, and Pratt. In addition, many encouraged students to visit the building, take part in its citywide GA meetings, and engage in discussions with students from other universities.

Less than a day after student protesters stormed The New School’s University Study Center and claimed it as their own, the scene at 90 Fifth Ave. was calm and collected on Friday afternoon.

They didn’t take the stock exchange. Instead they took over nearly the whole financial district. I arrived at Zuccotti Park yesterday morning at 7 a.m., as the Occupy Wall Street protesters were preparing to march down to the New York Stock Exchange with the hopes of keeping it closed. Hours later, the protesters hadn’t physically shut it down — a rumor that the opening bell was delayed proved to be false. But that doesn’t mean they failed to get their message across: they lost Zuccotti Park, but they weren’t going away.