Just how long will City Hall let the flower children of Occupy Wall Street remain camped out at Zuccotti Park?
Today’s the day New York is likely to find out.
Mayor Bloomberg visited the Zuccotti Park encampment yesterday and informed the assembled occupiers that, beginning at 7 a.m., they’ll have to give way to the guys with the power-scrubbers.
Well, no good landfill lasts forever, thank God — and besides, the assembled trustifarians and their allies will be allowed back as soon as the washdown is completed.
With one caveat: According to Brookfield Properties (which actually owns the park) and the NYPD, there will be no more camping out — no tarps, no tents, no sleeping bags and no lying on benches.
Drum circles remain to be seen.
How will this play with the protesters?
Most of those interviewed yesterday vowed to resist, suggesting it’s all a City Hall trick to roust them permanently.
But if they do resist, will the NYPD force them to move on?
As Brookfield said in a letter to Police Commissioner Ray Kelly, the encampment is creating a serious hazard for the area itself as well as the surrounding community.
“After weeks of occupation,” the firm wrote, “conditions at the Park have deteriorated to unsanitary and unsafe levels.”
Brookfield cited “hundreds” of complaints from area residents and workers about “numerous laws being broken, including but not limited to lewdness, groping, drinking and drug use, to … ongoing noise at all hours, to unsanitary conditions and to offensive noises.”
That is, the site is attracting rodents — the furry four-legged varity, and their two-legged cousins.
To be sure, the protesters have First Amendment rights, of which the city has been most respectful.
But there comes a point when even those rights have to eventually accommodate the equally compelling rights of area residents and businesses to lead a normal life.
And there are mounting complaints on that score from residents who’ve grown tired of the constant obstructions and middle-of-the-night noise.
Not to mention nearby store owners, who say business is off by 50 percent and who cite vandalism and disruption by protesters seeking toilets (organizers didn’t bother supplying their own).
Meanwhile, NYPD overtime costs have hit $3.2 million — and they’re growing.
All this likely concerns a lot of New Yorkers — but not the terminally clueless Rep. Jerrold Nadler, whose district includes lower Manhattan.
“Any prolonged demonstration is always going to have some local friction,” he told the Washington Times. “This is a national issue, not a neighborhood issue.”
Besides, whined Nadler, “businesses are being damaged a hell of a lot more by our stupid economic policies.”
Way to stand up for your peeps, Jerry.
But whose side will Mike Bloomberg come down on?
We’ll find that out today.