It was a moderately cool and rainy Sunday afternoon and I had just gotten off the R train into Lower Manhattan.  My plans were to head to Liberty Street and I had high expectations to see disheveled, unyielding activists pitched in tents, ardently protesting America’s corporate greed and corruption.

With my hippie-dar momentarily disoriented upon exiting the underground, I decided the follow the unshaven, long-haired fellow donning an American flag trenchcoat and white Christmas lights draped across his back.

My navigational technique proved effective.  For the hirsute one led me straight into a Drum Circle:

Honestly, I was a little disappointed with Occupy Wall Street’s home base.  Despite what it looks like in the 360 pan, the crowd ends on three of those sides beyond them with a few police officers standing on the fringes looking bored.   I’ve been in much larger drum circles in upstate NY that had no cause.

I feel that Zuccotti Park’s main problem is that relative to other parks it’s pretty tiny.  But it is the closest park to Wall Street.  Also, Zuccotti Park privately owned, but available to the public and so the police are urging the real estate owners to let them stay under this legal grey area.

They also really needed a less vague series of messages:

Photo by The Gothamist

Overview of the movement here.