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[/media-credit]The unannounced raid of Zuccotti Park by the NYPD in the early morning hours on Tuesday, Nov. 16 forced Occupy Wall Street demonstrators into the streets of Lower Manhattan. A loosely organized splinter group, after briefly rallying in Foley Square before dawn, marched north, to Duarte Square at the corner of Canal Street and Sixth Avenue. Adjacent to the square is a vacated lot owned by Trinity Real Estate.
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[/media-credit]At roughly 9:00 a.m. hundreds of protesters descended upon Duarte and then began climbing the fence in an attempt to occupy the vacated, fenced-off lot that has often been used by the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council for art-installations and dubbed “Lent Space.”
NYPD officers immediately surrounded the area and a brief standoff between protesters and the police came to an end when, after hours of negotiation between clergy members, Trinity and the NYPD proved insufficient and the protesters were ordered to evacuate the space or else be subject to arrest on the grounds of trespassing on private property.
— John Bayles
