A protest encampment similar in style to — but smaller in scale than — the Occupy Wall Street movement that transfixed Lower Manhattan in 2011 has claimed several hundred square feet of sidewalk space outside of the Goldman Sachs headquarters building, at northwest corner of Vesey and West Streets. The protestors arrived on Tuesday night, and the event’s organizers say they plan to remain there until the Friday inauguration of President-Elect Donald Trump.
The protestors, part of an organization that calls itself New York Community Lives, laid out more than a dozen sleeping bags and brought food supplies as well as changes of clothes. They are calling their action “Resist Trump Tuesdays,” according to several of the protestors, and multiple banners they have displayed at the site.
One of the event’s organizers, who would identify himself only as, “Dave,” said, “we are here because Donald Trump ran for the presidency on a platform of bashing Wall Street in general, and specifically Goldman Sachs. But now he is appointing them to run the economy.” This was a reference to a series of recent announcements by Mr. Trump’s transition team that at least four onetime Goldman executives would be joining the new administration. These include Steve Bannon (a former Goldman investment banker and subsequent chief of Breitbart News, an alt-right news, opinion, and commentary website), who has been designated the Trump White House’s chief strategist and Senior Counselor; Steve Mnuchin (a former Goldman Sachs partner), who has been appointed Secretary of the Treasury; Anthony Scaramucci (a hedge fund operator, who worked at Goldman in the 1990s), tapped to serve as a presidential assistant; and Gary Cohn (currently the second in command at Goldman), who will serve as the president’s top economic advisor.
These appointments underscore a marked contrast with the tone of Mr. Trump’s campaign, in which the populist candidate accused the Goldman Sachs of having “total, total control” over his rival for the Republican nomination, Ted Cruz, and implied that his Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton, was conspiring with Goldman executives, “to plot the destruction of U.S. sovereignty.” A television ad aired days before the election contained an image of Goldman Sachs chief executive officer Lloyd Blankfein (who is Jewish) as Trump is heard railing against, “the global power structure that is responsible for the economic decisions that have robbed our working class, stripped our country of its wealth and put that money into the pockets of a handful of large corporations and political entities.” This ad (and Mr. Trump’s October speech, from which it contained excerpts) was condemned by the Anti-Defamation League for echoing anti-Semitic conspiracy theories about alleged international control secretly exerted by Jewish bankers. How appointing senior Goldman personnel to senior positions within the new administration will stop the purported conspiracy that Mr. Trump campaigned against remains unclear.
The scene on Wednesday afternoon. as protestors congregated within the metal barricades erected by police officers at the northwest corner of West and Vesey Streets.
By late Wednesday, New York Police Department (NYPD) officers had cordoned off with metal barricades the area being occupied by the protestors at Vesey and West Streets. Because Goldman Sachs hires NYPD officers to work as private security guards while wearing their official uniforms (under a program known as the Paid Detail Unit), it was not clear whether the barricades were set up by officers acting in a law enforcement capacity, or on behalf of Goldman Sachs. The event organizer, Dave, would not say whether the protestors had obtained a permit from the NYPD to congregate on the sidewalk in front of the Goldman building, but did say, “everyone has been very nice to us so far, and nobody has tried to make us leave.”
As of Wednesday afternoon, Goldman Sachs security personnel and NYPD officers working near the entrance to the firm’s headquarters, appeared to be studiously ignoring — and maintaining a discreet distance from — the Resist Trump Tuesdays protestors.
Three images from online video, credit unknown
and one photo by Robert Simko