THOMAS MACMILLAN PHOTO
Parks workers set up barricades — for the St. Pat’s parade.
First the police barricades went up. Then a gigantic Dumpster appeared alongside the encampment. Then the lights went out on Occupy New Haven.
The word went out on Facebook: “Rumor has it raid tonight.”
That was the latest rumor of a looming police action to course through New Haven’s tent-city “occupation” of the upper Green. It came in the wake of three seemingly portentous events on the heels of a City Hall “proposal” the the five-month-old colony vacate the premises by “mid-March.”
The events appear to have been unrelated to each other or to any move to evict the occupiers—yet.
But they fed a thread of conspiracy that grows, and tightens, in the makeshift community on the Green that senses its final days approaching.
First, on Wednesday, police barricades went up on the southwest corner of the Green, spitting distance from the occupation. Then on Thursday morning, a huge green trash container appeared on College Street alongside the camp, prompting speculation that the city was getting ready to throw out the occupation.
Finally, on Thursday night, none of the sidewalk lamps on the upper Green came on when the sun went down. Occupiers suspected it was an intentional move by the city, said occupier Ben Aubin. The precursor to a police raid, someone posted on the
Occupy New Haven Facebook page.
Not so, said city officials. Neither the barricades, the Dumpster, nor the darkened lamps are related to the city’s request that the Occupy encampment fold up its tents and move on, they said.
That said, everyone seems to be preparing for a final showdown at the country’s longest-running permanently “occupied” encampment to grow out of last fall’s anti-corporate “Occupy Wall Street” movement.
The city last week
issued a “proposal” to Occupy New Haven, which stands as one of the most enduring outposts of the Occupy Wall Street movement that swept the nation last fall. The document proposed that the encampment by mid-March vacate the Green, where it has stood for nearly five months.
Law professor Drew Days, head of the private self-perpetuating group that owns the Green, meeting with Occupiers at City Hall last month.
Occupiers have not yet responded to the proposal. They will do so at a Monday press conference, said Aubin. He said the plan for the next year of Occupy New Haven will be unveiled then.
Some occupiers vow to fight to the finish. Others in town, some of them sympathetic to the occupation (like Register reporter Randall Beach in
this column Friday), argue that the encampment has long succeeded in making a point and now largely houses homeless people while running up a taxpayer tab and crowding out others who want to use the Green.
People on all sides are wondering if it can be possible to solve the stalemate without jeopardizing the remarkable cooperation so far between protest organizers and New Haven officials. (
Click here to read about an extensive debate among city officials, occupiers, and a “proprietor of the Green,” Drew Days, over the philosophical and practical issues involved.)
Meanwhile, two new arrivals this week, courtesy of the parks and public works departments, rattled an already unsettled encampment.
On Wednesday morning, parks department workers set up an arc of police barricades near the corner of College and Chapel streets.
“They’re putting up barricades?” asked a startled occupier.
Christy Hass, deputy director of the parks department, said the sawhorses have “absolutely nothing to do with” Occupy New Haven. They’re setting up the staging area for TV coverage of the St. Patrick’s Day Parade on Sunday, she said.
On Thursday morning, a huge Dumpster showed up on College Street near the occupation.
“This is getting me a little bit scared,” said occupier Tony Rivera. “We have a Dumpster.”
The occupation already has a large container for trash. Rivera said he was concerned the city was getting ready to load the encampment into the garbage.
“The Dumpster doesn’t have anything to do with the city’s proposal for a mid-March end date for the permanent structures on the Green,” said city spokeswoman Elizabeth Benton. “Last week [public works director] John Prokop visited the site and noticed a large amount of debris, and he said then that he would bring them a larger dumpster to help with the cleanliness of the site. The new Dumpster is a result of that visit and conversation.”
As the occupation absorbed the new barricades and Dumpster, occupier Josh Heltke tried to bulwark his claim to the Green by heading to City Hall on Thursday to apply for a resident ID card with his address listed as “Occupy New Haven on the New Haven Green.” He was unsuccessful.
Click here to watch videos of that.
Later, on Thursday evening, Aubin said the lights on the upper Green never went on. In five months, that’s never before happened, he said. Occupiers immediately worried that police would show up to force them out, he said.
“The city did not turn the lights off on Occupy,” Benton wrote in an email late Thursday night. She said she could not verify at the late hour if the lights were in fact off, and if so, why.
“The Engineering Department was notified regarding the lights and is looking into the problem,” she said Friday morning. “There is absolutely no connection between the lights going out and the City’s request to Occupy.”
Aubin said occupiers were drawing conclusions nonetheless, connecting the Dumpster appearance to the blackout. “It’s easy to put the pieces together, even if it’s not true.”
“No lights on upper green. Rumor has it raid tonight,” read a posting on Occupy New Haven’s Facebook page, put up around 11 p.m.. It prompted 18 responses by midnight.
“Whether intentionally or unintentionally, they’re creating a very dangerous situation,” Aubin said of the city.
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