Want to Hold A Revolution? Don’t Do it In Freedom Plaza.
It's like occupying a desert. (Lydia DePillis)
There are lots of differences between the two encampments now thoroughly established in downtown D.C. The one on Freedom Plaza has been in the works since this spring, in anticipation of the 10th anniversary of the war in Afghanistan, while the one in McPherson square—a.k.a. Occupy K Street—arose in response to the spontaneous takeover of Zucotti Park in New York City. Freedom Plaza has an extended permit from the National Park Service, while the residents of McPherson Square have none at all. Freedom Plaza represents an older generation of left-wing activists still rooted in opposition to Vietnam, while Occupy K Street is the new guard, learning and drawing strength from the rest of the movement through every kind of social media imaginable.
But the most important difference? The ground they stand on.
All public spaces are not created equal, as we know. And Freedom Plaza, a vast expanse of concrete inlaid with representations of the White House and the Capitol Complex, is about as livable as a barren tundra. Tents have overflowed the small grassy patches, and are resting on hard concrete. Communal services, like food, medical supplies, and media, are clustered in a corner; the central walkway between them is narrow and divided by a staircase, which makes it difficult to navigate. The evening gathering, called General Assembly, can only occur in the middle of the plateau. Although this has changed recently, for much of the time they've been there, the facilitator spoke using a mic in front of a bunch of chairs arranged in rows—not the most democratic way to hold a meeting.
Most devastatingly, there's nothing of much value around the plaza. There's the fortified wall of the Reagan building, the usually dark National Theatre, a blank office building, and the monumental staircase of D.C.'s city hall—not the people these protesters are targeting. There's no reason for passersby to go through the plaza unless they're curious about something inside it. All in all, a lonely place to hold an occupation.
Now, consider McPherson Square. It's a much more traditional park, symmetrically organized around a central statue, spacious but not big enough to get lost in. There's much more earth than concrete, which allows something of a separation between the "residential" and more transitory concrete spaces. Rather than ranks of chairs, meetings are held in circles sitting down on the grass, lending them an intimacy Freedom Plaza could never offer. The communal tents line both sides of a "street" that people would naturally walk through, browsing at the lending library, sitting on a bench, or stopping to chat at the information station without getting in anyone's way. The mature trees serve both as landmarks—"meet by that oak," you might say—and as shelter from both the sun and the rain. It's surrounded by restaurants, residences, hotels, and offices that are all open to the street, creating a natural circulation of people who stop and stay a while on their way to lunch or appointments or the metro.
In short, it's urban—closer to the heart of the living city than Freedom Plaza's location in the midst of federal sterility, and much better suited for the kind of community the occupiers are seeking to create. The movement, as I understand it, isn't as much about message as it is about modeling the way they'd like society to work. As Times architecture critic Michael Kimmelman put it, it's a polis, open to all, where consensus is achieved through an "architecture of consciousness."
Regardless of what you think about their politics, both occupations are a vast improvement over the typical state of those parks. They're much more public spaces, put to excellent use as hubs of 24-hour activity rather than dead zones.
Kozy on K Street.
But both will have to end eventually, and I wouldn't be surprised to see Freedom Plaza end first, because it's just not as attractive a place to live. And living is basically what this whole thing is about.
I'm working on a longer column about this for next week's print edition. Get in touch if you feel like it.
11:06 pm
"And living is basically what this whole thing is about?" your post or the protests?
7:47 am
@11th - Huh?
11:39 am
Awesome piece!
Just a correction/clarification: the occupation of McPherson is called Occupy DC not Occupy K Street. It's a bit confusing but that specifically refers to the park (and not Stop the Machine at Freedom Plaza) although we are using @OccupyKSt on twitter as some unknown person registered @OccupyDC back in August and then never used it.
I get the confusion though.
12:02 pm
If the "occupants" get kicked out of McPherson and Freedom Plaza, I hope they take a look at Franklin Square. That park is HUGE, on K Street and in the middle of it all. As a local resident, I'd feel safer walking through there at night if it was all protestors instead of the current crop of prostitutes, junkies and vagrants that call the park their home at night...
12:19 pm
@Lydia DePillis - you make fine points observing that mcpherson square is a more pleasant place to live than is freedom plaza, but i don't understand the last sentence of your post. i was asking if you'd meant that line to mean "it's easier to tough it out in a more pleasant place" or that "the mcpherson square protests are more viable because they're 'about modeling the way they'd like society to work' and the place they're at complements/embodies that."
2:32 pm
I keep wondering how the folks on Freedom Plaza are faring precisely because of the fact that it's an island. And the fact that they're not targeting out pretty disenfranchised "city hall." It's kinda confusing.
3:19 pm
@11th: I think she's suggesting it's both. It's a more pleasant place that allows for greater freedom in using the space to create a sense of urban community that could be a radical model for the future.
Kinda psyched that my hometown alternative paper did one of only two stories on the planet about the occupation wave from a perspective of urban living rather than just the "some cute hippies in a park" angle that i've been seeing everywhere else.
As for the Freedom Plaza occupation, yeah, it's weird that they chose a space right in front of the Wilson Building yet they aren't doing anything locally focused. They did that for Occupy LA to great effect. That's the problem though--that occupation has its origins in a traditional antiwar organizing project and they clearly picked Freedom Plaza because it's called Freedom Plaza not because of where it is.
I'm shocked they didn't go with Pershing Park given the history of that park within global justice activism in DC.
3:31 pm
I'm gonna go on record as saying that it should be called Occupy K Street not Occupy DC . I hope the official name can be changed because it makes waaaay more sense. and from the perspective of a local and an activist, this city is already occupied.
3:37 pm
As someone who works across from the Freedom Plaza location, I completely agree with Lydia. The Plaza is just a huge slab of concrete and marble that few people know about with a location that doesn't specifically occupy anything. If you want to have an invisible protest, that's where you have it. If you are going to occupy a place, let it be the Mall in front of the Capitol and definitely K Street, where they can be SEEN and where a lot of our problems are derived.
2:19 pm
As a resident of Freedom Plaza during the occupation, allow me to address a few of your points. The location was chosen for 2 main reasons. Our inspiration was the Arab Spring, specifically Tahrir ("Liberty") Square, so Freedom Plaza is the most logical analog within the District. Add the fact that it is within blocks (ie, protest distance) of both the White House and the Capitol then the choice was obvious. (Your caption, "like occupying a desert", has shown me a further homage to our Arab brothers and sisters.) Comfort and livability were never given too much consideration (though some shade trees sure would have been nice!), we knew the heat and cold and rain we would have to endure could never compare to the bullets and batons the Syrians and Egyptians faced for their cause.
As for the "nothing of value around the plaza" comment, that may be true but is more than offset by a) the constant traffic and tourists and buses that regularly pass around the plaza, and b) all the special events in the area. We've had literally tens of thousands of extra visitors lured in by the Taste of DC, the Voting Rights rally, etc.
I agree that Freedom Plaza is not a particularly pleasant or inviting space, but I still stand by the choice for its location and its symbolism. WE ARE THE 99%!