As counter-protesters — including Occupy Boston Queer and Trans Direct Action Working Group — expressed their opposition to Lively’s participation, one of the speakers said from the podium, broadcast across the loud speakers at the Commons, “We will not be silenced by faggots.” Read a first-hand account from the protester roughed up in the picture at Back2Stonewall. Pictures via Courtney Sacco:

Occupy Boston in front of the Federal Reserve, on October 2.

10. “The act of occupation, this court has determined as a matter of law, is not speech”

9. “The plaintiffs’ occupation of Dewey Square to the effective exclusion of others is the very antithesis of their message that a more just and egalitarian society is possible”

8. “While it is surely true that any person who chooses to make a speech or carry a placard at Dewey Square would find a hospitable audience, parents with young children, vendors, and wheelchair-bound people cannot access this space as presently used.”

7. “The Conservancy in enacting and enforcing rules is effectively acting as a governmental agency”

6. “Municipalities across the country have responded in kind to the act of occupation, frequently by police force. I take that as showing that the act of occupation is not understood to communicate plaintiffs’ intended message of egalitarian democracy”

5. “There is little likelihood that Occupy Boston’s professed message can be understood by their act of occupation, either. It has not generally been perceived as benign by those occupied”

4. “The media has clearly understood the plaintiffs’ contribution to the national conversation”

3. “The court has been informed that the plaintiffs wish to import a stainless steel sink and fireproof tent onto the site. As should be clear from this opinion, they are not entitled to do so.”

2. “Here, the Federal Reserve Bank is not the intended audience”

1. “The plaintiffs are permitted to camp on the Harbor Islands in Boston”

Although not as bizarre as some of the other quotations, the judge’s finding about the Conservancy is telling. The Rose Kennedy Greenway Conservancy is a private corporation run by a board of Boston’s one percent — wealthy financiers, corporate lawyers, and real estate investors. The judge has explicitly found that the control of public space has been explicitly transferred to this private corporation, which makes rules and regulations in place of a democratic government.

Occupy Boston now has everything but the kitchen sink. Photo by Robin Jacks (@caulkthewagon).

Police seized the newly donated graywater sink and tossed it into the back of a police wagon, as other police with flex cuffs blocked occupiers. Dozens of motorcycle police arrived. A brief skirmish ensued as some protesters linked arms to block the wagon from leaving. In the ensuing sink seizure chaos, occupier Suzi Pietroluongo was stepped on by a police officer. When the police wagon sped off, the back doors were open and the sink was hanging out.

Watch Bob Plain‘s video of the police seizing the sink:

At the General Assembly following the sink skirmish, Occupy Boston librarian John Ford jokingly asked if this is the most any municipality has ever spent for a kitchen sink. Boston Police have consistently prevented Occupy Boston from bringing in winterized tents, insulation materials, and other safety equipment, calling it “contraband.”

Earlier this week, the Rose Kennedy Greenway Board of Directors, a group of wealthy Bostonians who help manage Dewey Square, charged that the occupation needed to be shut down because “sanitary conditions are deteriorating.”

Occupy Boston witness K. Eric Martin talks to reporters after hearing. Photo by Robin Jacks.

Occupy Boston’s witness, winterization working group leader K. Eric Martin, explained the public forum in the heart of the financial district is crucial to the movement, and described how Boston Police have prevented the occupiers from bringing in winterized tents and other materials to improve the occupiers’ well-being. (From John Atwater, J.M Lawrence, Carl Stevens, Robin Jacks reports.)

Why are Boston's police ignoring a court order protecting Occupy Boston from raids?

Boston police appear to have violated this order during a raid last night. Police entered the Occupy boston encampment and seized a wooden pallet from the protesters and removed it. Watch a video of one protester explaining what happened and showing a picture of the seizure:

The stay on police actions was not supposed to end until Dec. 1, and it is unclear what the city of Boston will do now that the police appear to have violated a court order.

There’s trash all over the place. All the grass has been pounded down. This was from them sitting out there there all day today. It’s exactly what the people who run the Greenway were afraid of.

Watch it:

Davis made this false claim even though police were videotaped and photographed demolishing the tents, for DPW workers to put into garbage trucks. The police scanner tells the real story:

1:25 am: “We’ve confiscated quite a bit of signs and wood, we need to get rid of. If the truck comes the wrong way by the Intercontinental we can load it up.”

1:30 am: “We do have a garbage truck here trying to get the way down.”

1:33 am: “Get rid of some of this garbage.”

1:34 am: “Trash trucks are pulling up now.”

1:36 am: “The particular section of the Greenway that they wanted them cleared out has been cleared. DPW is removing tents. “

“Personally, I lost my tent, two sleeping bags, a large comforter and pillow, and a box of DVDs that were given to me for the purpose of creating an educational film series for Occupy Boston,” one arrested demonstrator wrote after being detained for 13 hours. “They took all the tents and belongings, destroyed them and put them in a trash truck and hauled them away.”

Some backpacks and other small items were sent to a Boston Police lost and seized items facility.

See below for photographs:

A Boston Police sergeant dismantles a tent before it is destroyed. Credit: Kristen Caffray.

Occupy Boston first aid supplies, before being destroyed by Boston Police. Credit: Kristen Caffray.

Boston police officers trample Greenway shrubbery. Credit: Kristen Caffray

Police destroy tents of arrested Occupy Boston demonstrators. Credit: Harvard Crimson

Boston police officers and DPW workers trash demonstrators' tents and signs. Credit: Harvard Crimson

Boston City Council President Stephen J. Murphy

“We’re being told that there will be about two million dollars if it continues through the month of October.” [Fox Boston, 10/12/11]

“I heard from a commander on the scene the other day after the arrests that the costs could exceed about two million dollars in a month, but that’s tentative because you don’t know how many people you’re going to have to deploy.” [Fox Boston, 10/13/11]

Watch Murphy on Fox 25 Boston:

Murphy used the cost estimate to claim that “every individual, every family, and every city” is “economically hurt by this.” “Something is going to give down the line,” Murphy warned, “whether it’s snow plowing, or street cleaning, or educational needs, or summer jobs for kids.”

However, the Boston Police Department and Mayor Tom Menino deny the existence of any estimated cost for Occupy Boston-related activities. “I don’t where that person got that number from and whether that’s based on any fact or not,” media relations officer Eddie Chrispin told ThinkProgress. He said that “no one can stand behind” a cost estimate yet.

Murphy’s fearmongering has been picked up by WBZ-TV, owned by Viacom billionaire Sumner Redstone, and the Boston Herald, owned by former News Corporation executive Patrick Purcell.

That $2 million number is remarkably identical to the figure Mayor Michael Bloomberg has promoted as the cost of Occupy Wall Street police activities in New York City. The claim that Boston could be spending on police overtime at a comparable rate to New York City to handle a vastly smaller protest, which has involved much less confrontation with the police, is bizarre.

“It’s costing a lot of resources for the City of Boston. We do not have an estimate for that,” Menino told WBUR on Tuesday morning. “Mayor Bloomberg says it’s costing his city over $2 million. I haven’t got that estimate of Boston yet.”

“BPD spokeswoman Elaine Driscoll said the department had no official estimates yet of the overtime cost,” the Boston Herald reported, even though it trumpeted Murphy’s figure.

Not only is Murphy’s price tag an apparent fiction, there is also the larger question whether there needs to be major police expenditures against peaceable political assembly.

“They don’t need this many police observing us. They don’t need to have helicopters up every night. It’s just burning through money,” said Occupy Boston spokesman Phil Anderson. “We don’t really feel they need to be paying overtime for 200 police in riot gear to rough us up and kick us out of our camp.”

Veterans for Peace guard Occupy Boston protesters before the arrests. Credit: JonPack

After the arrests and the destruction of the expanded encampment, Mayor Thomas Menino and Police Commissioner Ed Davis have offered conflicting accounts of the reasons for the city’s actions, from protecting grass to preventing outdoor sleeping. Davis called those arrested “anarchists,” and Menino claimed “outsiders” who came “from another country” hijacked the Occupy Boston protest:

MENINO: “There’s evidence that some other individuals who have came into the group and want to create trouble for the City of Boston and also get an aggressive message out there. They’re not the same people we talked to last week and the week before. You know, they come into cities and create this atmosphere and then they go to another city and create the atmosphere — they don’t care if they get arrested, they just move from city to city to raise the issue of civil disobedience.” [NECN, 10/11/11]

MENINO: “The folks who have moved in and tried to create civil disobedience aren’t the ones who are really involved in this protest. They’re the outsiders who come in from city to city and demonstration to demonstration.” [WBUR, 10/11/11]

MENINO: “These 40 people come from another country, another city, want to cause trouble in my city? They defied us. They broke the law. Allowing these 40 people to take over for all the people who are there is wrong.” [Boston Herald, 10/11/11]

DAVIS: “The group that was here for the first ten days was working very closely with us, that broke down today. We talked to the people we’ve been dealing with and they said the anarchists have taken over.” [WHDH, 10/11/11]

Watch:

In fact, the people arrested were part of Occupy Boston. The decision to expand the camp was made by consensus at an Occupy Boston collective meeting. Hours before any arrests were made and well before Menino and Davis’ claim of “outside” “anarchists,” Occupy Boston issued a press release: “Occupy Boston expanded to an adjoining section of the Rose Kennedy Greenway Conservancy to accommodate the many hundreds of people who come daily to join the occupation. This peaceful expansion was undertaken to make a place for everyone in our movement.”

Menino’s “40 people from another country” are a fantasy. Of the 141 arrestees, 135 are from the Boston area. The local residents arrested range from a 17-year-old high school student to a 64-year-old Vietnam veteran. Others arrested include legal observer Urszula Masny-Latos, executive director for the Massachusetts branch of the National Lawyers Guild, and Boston University student John Wood, who wrote about his ordeal.

Occupy Boston protesters arrested by Boston Police. Credit: Aaron Spagnolo.

Before the arrests and clearing of the park, the police surrounded it, lining up over a dozen paddy wagons along one side. They told members of the media to leave and not to film proceedings. After a five-minute warning to disperse, police moved in, first arresting the peacefully protesting veterans — who included a female veteran of the Iraq War, according to the Boston Phoenix — and then other Occupy Boston activists. According to Boston Police Commissioner Ed Davis, about 100 arrests were made.

The police then tore down the protesters’ encampment. Live feeds from onlookers showed Boston Police dumping dismantled tents, signs, and chairs into waiting garbage trucks, destroying the protesters’ property.

Tuesday morning’s mass arrest marks the first significant confrontation between police and Occupy Boston. Activists in solidarity with Occupy Wall Street began an occupation of Dewey Square Park, a small park in the heart of Boston’s financial district on Friday, September 30, without conflict. The number of participants in Occupy Boston outgrew the space over the week. On Monday morning, dozens of protesters set up a new occupation on the Rose Kennedy Greenway between Pearl and Congress Streets, one block northeast of Dewey Square. Over the course of the day, the Boston Police Department issued warnings to the occupiers of the new encampment that they were at risk of arrest because of potential damage to the greenway.

Over Twitter, a department spokesperson warned activists the police wanted to “curtail additional damage to newly developed green space” because “the Greenway Conservancy recently invested over $150,000 in new plantings for all to enjoy.” The Greenway Conservancy is a private non-profit organization that raises funds for the public park. Its board is comprised of several of Boston’s wealthiest financiers.

Before the mass arrest and destruction of the second Occupy Boston encampment, police media relations issued a statement that “the Boston Police Department respects your right to protest peacefully.”

Yesterday, well over 10,000 people in New York City marched in support of a group of around a thousand people occupying Zuccotti Park near Wall Street in order to protest economic inequality.

Today, hundreds of people remain encamped at Zuccotti Park. ThinkProgress spoke to one of them, an electrician and International Brotherhood of Electric Workers (IBEW) union Local 103 member named Bob Broadhurst Broadhurst came to join the occupation early last week, when almost no unions had yet endorsed the demonstrations. He explained that he was “fed up” with the political and financial systems. He noted that since then most major unions have backed the demonstrations.

He said he’d like to see the Glass-Steagall Act re-instated, which would separate commercial and investment banking. When ThinkProgress asked him about how the rich were able to get away with paying less and less in taxes, he noted that this was another reason he’s protesting and that taxes on the rich were much higher under Republican presidents Dwight Eisenhower and Ronald Reagan. Watch the interview with Broadhurst :

Since the start of the protests — which were led primarily by students and younger Americans — the nation’s unions have slowly come to support their cause. Ranging from the Writers Guild East to the National Nurses United to the SEIU, organized labor has taken up the cause of holding corporate America accountable and standing up for the 99 percent of Americans who are getting less and less out of the economy as the richest one percent get more.

Broadhurst described the union and wider American support for the students in Zuccotti Park as an “arrow” formation. He said the students occupying the Financial District are the tip of the arrow, but that the protests around the country among a wide section of Americans forms the base — a base that has been drawn by the power of their cause.

Now, the movement growing in New York appears to be spreading, as more than 3,000 people marched on Bank of America in Boston yesterday and more than two dozen people were arrested during a sit-in protesting the big bank’s foreclosure policies. The protests were organized by a coalition calling itself the New Bottom Line. Meanwhile, an occupation movement titled “Occupy Boston,” which is allied with the protesters in New York, has encamped itself for a long-term protest against the financial sector. Watch video of the demonstrations and resulting arrests:

The occupation of Wall Street appear to be organically spreading, as similar movements are popping up across the nation, in locations as varied as Chicago, Washington, D.C., and Los Angeles.

Because as much as I want more women writing about sports and doing good sports journalism, Watney’s awful. She does the world’s fluffiest sideline interviews — during one recent game, she took a ride on the train that shoots oranges when someone hits a home at Minute Maid park, the player she was interviewing staring at her chest all the while. Watney’s also been rumored to have affairs with both Red Sox catcher Jason Varitek towards the end of his marriage and short-lived Sox infielder Nick Green. Even if she never slept with either man, socializing with them outside of a professional context and in a way that invites comment about the nature of that socializing seems like a substantial violation of journalistic ethics that would get an actual reporter like Amalie Benjamin (or for that matter, Mr. Abraham) promptly cashiered, but I guess it doesn’t particularly conflict with her role as a sideline cupcake.

Sideline reporter is not necessarily the most glamorous job in the business, either, but Suzy Kolber and Michele Tafoya have proven that women can do the job with dignity and use it in pursuit of actual information (even if drunken athletes hit on them), and while Craig Sager may have the world’s worst collection of suits, at least he’s got a sense of humor about his place in the game. In a world where women have a hard time being taken seriously as commentators, Watney plays to the worst stereotypes of women in the game, a baseball Annie who doesn’t even have the cardinal virtue of the original, that she’s a genius at the sport. The standards for women in and around sports are, I’m sorry to say, higher. And having Heidi Watney’s worse than having a man in that spot. Boston’s a city with a lot of female sports fans. Surely, we can find one who gives good camera and good interview, and can do it without playing into the idea that women are either airheads or groupies when it comes to athletes.

Ed Glaeser is always worth reading, and his review of a new book about Boston making the point that the city is less exceptional than the author seems to think is excellent:

Puleo marvels at the enormous expansion that Boston experienced after the Civil War, but all of America’s largest cities in 1860 experienced extraordinary growth in this period [i.e., 1850 to 1900]. New Orleans, which grew the least, expanded by 129 percent. Boston’s population growth rate of 320 percent seems spectacular, except when it is compared with the faster growth rates of New York, St. Louis, Buffalo, Chicago and Brooklyn. Why did all of these urban areas expand so dramatically in the nineteenth century?

One reason for this dramatic urban growth is that America’s cities were the nodes of a great transport network that tied together an entire continent. The wealth of the American hinterland was made accessible to the tables of the east coast and Europe because of huge investments in canals and rail. In Boston, as in New York and Chicago, rail lines were laid near to older waterways, and increased the city’s dominance over transportation in New England. Manufacturing, freed from large rivers like the Merrimac by improvements in engine technology, could move to cities and take advantage of this growing transportation network.

To go even bigger picture than Glaeser, the thing about this period is just that the country as a whole experienced very rapid population growth. In 1850 there were 23 million Americans (136,881 of them in Boston) and by 1900 there were 76 million, of whom 560,892 lived in Boston. We normally think of this as a period when “the west” was settled by farmers, but there was huge growth in the older cities as well. One key thing is that at that point American public policy wanted to grow. Immigrants were welcome largely without restriction, and the main barriers to denser residential construction were technological. Under the circumstances, people could and did flock to the places where their efforts were most valuable.