This Is What a Boiling Point Looks Like: #Occupy Boston's Final Hours at Dewey Square
Perhaps
it's rather fitting that Dewey Square looks like a trampled
battlefield today, with just a few dozen tents left among the planks,
cardboard, packed boxes, and rubble. While the park-wide clean-up and
vacate effort kicked off with a bang yesterday – allowing most
Occupy Boston campers and working groups to safely store valuables –
by this afternoon it had slowed to a crawl. Even those who were
attempting to haul trash and goods seemed to be doing little more
than moving rubbish from one side of Dewey to another – a
phenomenon that anyone who's ever cleaned up a big construction job
would understand.
At
this point there's a strong sense that the end of this particular
Dewey occupation – the longest running of its kind in the country
at 70 days – is looming cold and hard. With that comes a general
feeling – especially among those who physically remain – to stay
put through the very end, until they're hauled off in city vehicles
along with all their tents, flags, and other remnants of revolt (one person tells me that "as long as the movement remains there in any form, he will as well).
But what throws a giant
wrench into their end game is the tactical advantage that police
have. Right now in Dewey it's like “The Hills Have Eyes.” They're
watching, and they're coming, but nobody knows quite when (though
many believe the inevitable raid will come late tonight or late
tomorrow night).
Things
began to tense up at around 2pm today, when cops started shooing away
people who were bringing food donations. The food tent as it once was
is gone – a few folding tables in a puddle of vinegar mud remain,
along with whatever scraps have been smuggled in – and authorities
are ensuring that it stays that way. The same goes for just about
everything else that folks have tried to bring – blankets, clothes,
drinks. Clearly the mentality is that the activists will be gone
soon, so might as well make rank-and-file officers confront people
over every slice of pizza that comes through the entrance.
To
darken the mood a bit, the Rose Kennedy Greenway Conservancy
allegedly cut off power to the trapezoid for a few hours this
afternoon. It's reportedly back on now – and that wasn't going to stop the 7pm
General Assembly anyway – but the perceived symbolic “lights out”
gesture was a real psychological bombshell. On top of that, some
remaining Occupiers say they've been told that Dewey will close at
11pm this evening. That could be a loose deadline like last night's
vague threat, which resulted in little more than a rally dance party
and two arrests. Or it could be the final kibosh. This is what a
boiling point looks like.