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Occupy Wall Street Demonstrates Near Bloomberg's Mansion

By DNAinfo Staff on November 20, 2011 12:35pm  | Updated on November 20, 2011 5:02pm

Occupy Wall Street protesters gathered near Mayor Bloomberg's Upper East Side home on Nov. 20, 2011.
Occupy Wall Street protesters gathered near Mayor Bloomberg's Upper East Side home on Nov. 20, 2011.
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DNAinfo/Matt Draper

By Matt Draper and Tom Liddy

DNAinfo Reporters

MANHATTAN — Occupy Wall Street protesters, fresh off a national "Day of Action" that saw thousands march through the city and hundreds arrested in clashes with police, staged a protest near Mayor Michael Bloomberg's Upper East Side mansion Sunday afternoon.

About 100 protesters amassed on Fifth Avenue, near 79th Street around 2 p.m. after a short march over from Madison Avenue.

Police had barricaded the area around Bloomberg's house, preventing the protesters from getting close, but before the bulk of the crowd arrived, a protester wearing sunglasses and banging a massive drum made it to the front of Bloomberg's home. He was eventually shooed away.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Police Commissioner Ray Kelly addressed reporters after visiting an injured police officer at Bellevue Hospital Center.
Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Police Commissioner Ray Kelly addressed reporters after visiting an injured police officer at Bellevue Hospital Center.
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DNAinfo/Jill Colvin

Demonstrators, corralled behind police barricades, held signs saying "Billionaires: your time is up" and "Break up big business" while occasionally shouting "Down with Bloomberg."  Some protesters waved flags and others played drums while passersby snapped photos of the crowd.

Brandon Ferraro, 19, from New Jersey, who was at Zuccotti Park when the protesters were evicted in a pre-dawn Tuesday said that he came to the protest: "for Bloomberg to realize what he's doing is not right" concerning "the eviction and the way he orders things."

Nadine Cohen, a consultant from the Upper West Side who was laid off on Nov. 1, decided to join the protesters after passing by them for several weeks.

"Just because I live on [the Upper West Side] means nothing. I'm in a rent stabilized apartment and I don't want to be on unemployment. Now I don't know if I'll get another job," she said.
"This isn't about homeless people or students — this is about all of us."

A notice for the event told those who were interested to bring sleeping bags, instruments, food, and art supplies for the planned 24-hour event beginning at 2 p.m.

"Let's occupy the park [near Bloomberg's home] and have a love-in and serenade Mayor Mike," the notice, on Facebook, says.

But there were no sleeping bags or tents in sight.

The protesters were evicted from their encampment at Zuccotti Park early Tuesday morning and have been trying to regroup ever since. Bloomberg said the final decision to do so was his.

A fixture of the movement at the plaza, near the World Trade Center were drum circles that would often play into the night, drawing the ire of some residents.

On Thursday, protesters staged a massive series of demonstrations throughout Lower Manhattan, resulting in seven police officers being injured and nearly 250 arrests.

Thousands marched across the Brooklyn Bridge that evening in a largely peaceful demonstration.

The rally near Bloomberg's home also comes a day after a video hit the Internet showing police at UC Davis dousing Occupy protesters there with pepper spray.

Deputy Inspector Anthony Bologna, of the NYPD was disciplined for pepper-spraying a group of female protesters near Union Square on Sept. 24.