When she’s not traveling for her day job as a shoe designer for women and tweens, Ms. Anantharaman spends her weekends doing taxidermy. She answered the door in high-waisted black shorts, oversize glasses studded with rhinestones, sparkly green stick-on fingernails and bare feet—a bit of Brooklyn, where she lives, meets Miami, where she grew up. Ms. Anantharaman, who is dark-skinned, curvy and full-lipped, is gorgeous enough to pull this garish combination off—even as she clears a model of a human skeleton from the dining room table. “Last night I had some friends over and we were going to do taxidermy stuff, but we ended up just playing with my anatomy model,” she apologized.

Ms. Anantharaman has stuffed about 50 animals, and collected many more off eBay and from friends, who know that animal remains make an ideal house gift. The young fashionista tried to stuff her first mouse about four years ago on a whim, an experiment that evolved into an obsession with the rite of animal preservation. She’s using her winnings from Lifetime’s 24 Hour Catwalk, a grand prize of $10,000, to create a new line of taxidermy-themed footwear: high-heeled bunny slippers with real bunny heads, pumps covered in white mouse skin, that kind of thing. She has yet to name the collection. “Probably either ‘Ampoule’ or ‘Friends Forever,’” she said.

Her collection won’t be out for another two months, but there’s already plenty of haute roadkill littering the runway. We don’t mean mink stoles either—that stuff is for Grandma. Today, the truly fashion-forward lean more toward the German designer Iris Schieferstein, who famously produced a collection of heels made out of horse hooves, stuffed doves and snakes, for which she won approval from Lady Gaga. Another Gaga favorite, Alexander McQueen, awed fashion-watchers with his 2006 autumn and winter collection, Widows of Culloden, which featured antlers, bird cadavers and a pheasant-feathered dress. If you need something below the ankle to go with one of the pigeon head-pieces from London hipster goddess Reid Peppard, check out Alexander Fielden’s delicate hedgehog heels, or Niels van Eijk and Miriam van der Lubbe’s moleskin mole slippers, complete with eight sets of claws.

Those seeking more affordable taxidermy-chic can shop on Etsy, the online marketplace for handmade goods, where hundreds of such items are for sale. Brooches and necklaces are popular, as are tableaux of animals wearing uniforms (anthropomorphic taxidermy) and mad scientist, stitched-together, Human Centipede-style creations (rogue taxidermy). A winged rat is $275. A two-headed duckling is $70. Raccoon with one fist in a box of Cracker Jacks? $310. And on.

As an art, taxidermy is edgy, ecologically-friendly, lo-fi and crafty, which helps explain its popularity in the funkier pockets of Brooklyn and Manhattan. The Carnivorous Nights Taxidermy Contest in Park Slope just held its sixth annual event in December. The same impulse driving do-it-yourselfers to brew their own beer and cobble their own instruments together from recycled goods is, apparently, driving some young people to stuff their own cadavers. When it comes to artisanal taxidermy, off-the-gun-store-rack won’t do. Creative strongholds Observatory and the Brooklyn Brainery both recently hosted taxidermy classes, unleashing cohorts of amateur taxidermists into the wild. Nightclubs like Freemans, Home Sweet Home and the Jane all sport taxidermy decor—“hunting lodge hipster,” as a friend put it.

At this time last year, Animal Planet was airing American Stuffers, which focused on a pet taxidermy business, and the History Channel was running Mounted in Alaska, which focused on more Sarah Palin-esque game. Taxidermy frequently appears on Discovery’s Oddities, which revolves around Obscura Antiques & Oddities in the East Village. In January Jack White turned up on the History Channel’s American Pickers to haggle over a taxidermied elephant head.

While the goal of traditional taxidermy is to mimic nature, rogue taxidermy is out to scramble it. Weirdness is the thing.

The artist Damien Hirst, whose famous taxidermied-shark sculpture, The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living, sold for a reported $8 million, tried in 2003 to buy a collection of oddball taxidermy. Tableaux of a kitten’s wedding party, a group of hamsters playing cricket, a two-headed goat and so on, created by the Victorian-Edwardian artist Walter Potter, perhaps the first notable practitioner of rogue taxidermy. Mr. Hirst offered £1 million for the collection, but it was auctioned off, and Mr. Potter’s whimsically macabre pieces scattered. “It is,” Mr. Hirst wrote in an op-ed in The Guardian, “a tragedy.”

Kelly Owen, a Manhattan taxidermist who sells her work on Etsy under the name Morbid Curiosities Taxidermy, has a steady stream of orders for custom pieces. “I think it’s because it’s so niche,” she said of taxidermy’s recent popularity. As cute as such pieces can be, she added, “at the end of the day, it’s dead animals. That’s the main medium. I think it can only go so far as a trend.”
Ms. Owen just finished a commission for two cameo-style mouse-head brooches, and she’s working on a large winged rat. “People either like it or they don’t,” she said. “If I wanted to do something that everyone liked, I’d be knitting.”

THE OBSERVER ASKED MS. ANANTHARAMAN for a demonstration of her craft, and she was happy to oblige. She’s given many such exhibitions; her friends are “very into it,” she said, and the guy she’s dating doesn’t mind her hobby a bit. She selected the larger of the chilled birds from the baggie and placed it on a heart-shape paper plate decorated with Snow White and Princess Jasmine. She gets a lot of her supplies from the dollar store, she explained.

Ms. Anantharaman’s Ditmas Park apartment is well decorated and dimly lit. Two red chaise longues squared off the living room. Atop the coffee table, a little white mouse stood in front of a miniature full-length mirror, holding a wand and peering into a book of spells. Nearby, a fluffy gray bunny was tucked between the legs of a bobcat that was frozen in mid-yowl. Two new, black guns were mounted on hooks made of hooves. Two long shelves held titles ranging from Ornithology and Taber’s Cyclopedia of Anatomy and Physiology to Jane Eyre and Alice in Wonderland, Ms. Anantharaman’s favorite book, bookended by a faux human skull. The two uppermost shelves held animals in various states of preservation: freeze-dried, like the still-born deer; pickled, like the tiny mice; or mummified, in the case of a frog resting on a bed of dried roses, swaddled except for its curving webbed feet. Adjacent was a white paper packet containing the creature’s organs.

The majority of the animals, however, were stuffed: there was a fanged duck in a pink bow, and another mouse dyed to look like a bright yellow Pokemon. “Like Edward Gorey at a rave” was how Ms. Anantharaman described her aesthetic sensibility. Or Zooey Deschanel through the looking glass, The Observer thought, as we glimpsed a mouse with plastic blue eyeballs embedded in its back.

Ms. Anantharaman's cat, Fugazi, was curled up on one of the couches, glowering at us as Ms. Anantharaman brushed one of the finches clean. Fugazi has been known to eat the taxidermy, Ms. Anantharaman said. Emotionally, however, “he’s cool with it,” she insisted. “He knows it’s going to happen to him someday.”

The finch at hand was felled with a pellet gun, “probably by some asshole kids,” before Ms. Anantharaman found it during a hiking trip upstate. She scavenges her materials (occasionally in Prospect Park), but she recently got her hunting license and plans to shoot a turkey with a bow and arrow sometime next month.

Ms. Anantharaman is mostly self-taught, using clay-making tools and store-bought chemicals to fashion her creations. The only taxidermy-specific widget she owns is a guillotinelike device called a “tail stripper.” She also hopes to incorporate another hobby, perfumery, into her work—which seemed like a good idea given the sour, wet-earth smell coming from the finch.
Although Ms. Anantharaman appeared on an episode of TLC’s My Strange Addiction last summer, taxidermy isn’t really an addiction—just her favorite thing to do.

After her television appearances, she started getting fan mail, including a request to stuff a pet bunny. She’s had commissions from friends as well, including a hamster in her freezer that she plans to mount in a bowl of cherries. Once, a guy from her jiu jitsu class called, emotional in the tender moments after the family dog had passed. He asked about preservation. Ms. Anantharaman urged him to put the dog in the freezer if there was a chance he’d want it stuffed, but to think it over carefully. “Your dog’s going to be staring at you every day in the face,” she told him. He eventually decided against it. She has considered opening a pet taxidermy service, but she got hung up on the paperwork.

Taxidermy is heavily regulated. Ms. Anantharaman had to pass on a hawk once, because it’s illegal to take one home in New York. To work as a commercial taxidermist, she’d have to get certified; as a hobbyist, she can stuff as many small creatures as she likes.

She removed the bird’s guts to the princess plate and padded down the hall to the trash chute. She walked back quickly: “Shit, somebody was out there.”
Seated again at the dining room table—which is totally bleachable, she reassured us—she cooed over the dead bird’s pretty wings. “Aww, I’m so sad that he got shot,” she said as she removed the fatal pellets. “He’s so rumply! He looks like he had a rough night.”

After removing the eyes with tweezers, she stuffed the body with cotton and wire and sewed it up the front with plain black thread.

Some traditional taxidermists think it’s “disrespectful” to dress deceased animals in costumes, glue their claws to props, sew their body parts together to create recombinant circus freaks, or to incorporate them into footwear, Ms. Anantharaman said. In her opinion, rogue taxidermy is just another way of seeing the world. “It’s like the Impressionists,” she said.

The bird now resembled a bird again. Ms. Anantharaman had given it a fierce look with a pair of gold eyes made from sewing pins. She moved the bird to the closet to dry where Fugazi couldn’t get it.

“I’ll probably put a little top hat or something on him tomorrow,” she said.

A version of this story appeared in the New York Observer the week of April 25, 2012.

Angela was included in a 1,000-pack of allegedly single, supposedly American women, which Betabeat purchased for $35. Her profile is one of a purported 14.9 million for sale on SaleDatingProfiles.com, where the inventory also includes 10,000 U.K. profiles for $200; 15,000 Russians for $240, and 70,000 Australians for $95. A pack of 2,500 lesbian profiles goes for $120, or 4.8 cents apiece; gay men are .003 cents each and are sold in a pack of 410,000. “High quality Gays adult dating profiles for sale with multiplay photos located in USA, United Kingdom, Canada and other countries,” the offer states. At the time of writing, SaleDatingProfiles was having a 75-percent-off spring sale.

Angela, who asked that her last name be withheld, has been dating online for years. But she never imagined her profile was for sale on the open market, or that it now appears on MeetGirlsGuys.com, which she never signed up for. “I have never even heard of that site!” she said, adding that she lives in Texas, not Alabama, and the photo is at least seven years old.

Online dating is a fast-growing industry, with current revenues estimated to run between $1.5 and $3 billion a year. But every new dating site faces the same problem: finding souls to mate. Recruiting new customers is expensive; industry experts put the customer acquisition price at $1 to $5 per person.

SaleDatingProfiles and its competitors BuyProfiles.com and DatingProfilesSale.com offer a shortcut. They sell bulk packages of profiles that seem to include a fair number of actual singles alongside somewhat more questionable Russian beauties, Nigerian bankers and half-empty profiles, which sometimes sell for less than a dime a dozen. Read More

Mr. Greenberg. (Getty Images)

Back in February, Josiah Boatswain, a 26-year-old from Flatbush, Brooklyn, and a few friends were pampering themselves at Fontainbleau: a $600-per-night resort that bills itself as the most luxurious hotel on the strip, promising high-end shopping, celebrities at every table, “24-7 glamour,” and an “expansive poolscape” on the stretch of Miami Beach known as Millionaire’s Row. Mr. Boatswain spent his vacation sipping Champagne, nibbling tiny chocolate cakes, and buying armfuls of couture, which he arranged in tableaux in his hotel room and photographed for his Facebook page.

In one picture, a silver wristwatch served as the understated centerpiece before a wall of Gucci and Salvatore Ferragamo boxes; another is simply a lineup of 11 shopping bags, like a Real Housewife’s walk-in closet. “My bro always want to do it big!” a friend commented approvingly.

According to the Manhattan District Attorney’s office, Mr. Boatswain, “Siah” or “Pepsi” to his friends, was financing his taste for Gucci and Moët with other people’s money, and not just any other people’s money, but that of billionaire investor Ira Rennert, former AIG chief Hank Greenberg’s Starr Foundation, and the Wasserman family trust, among other high-profile philanthropists, financiers and New York personalities. No fewer than 55 people were indicted and arraigned two weeks ago in a case the city and the police have dubbed “INSIDERS,” so named because low-level employees allegedly stole financial account information from patrons of four institutions, including about 150 donors to the United Jewish Appeal-Federation and about 900 customers of an Audi dealership in Coney Island. The case has not been tried and the proceedings will likely take more than a year. But according to the DA, the final victim list included Eric Zinterhofer, son-in-law to cosmetics heir Ron Lauder; Paula Sarnoff Oreck, the niece of former RCA head David Sarnoff and ex-wife of Oreck vacuum-cleaner big David Oreck; and, according to the New York Post, NBA commissioner David Stern.

Billionaires. Cyber crime. Insiders. Did the investigators realize they had a very sexy case right away? “Oh, yeah,” said Assistant District Attorney David Szuchman. “Very early on, when we realized there was an insider at UJA; we realized that the amount of information that was being compromised was large,” he said. “Then we realized that the group had to be working with others and it was a very, very large group to investigate. The fraud was so prolific.”

Basically, the cops were tipped off when the swindlers cashed one too many money orders. When you get access to a stolen debit card, one way to milk more cash out fast is to take it to the post office. With ATMs, you have withdrawal caps; money orders come in denominations of $1,000 and the fee is just $1.55.

Banks are hip to the money order racket, however. When debit cards that had been used to buy money orders were later flagged for fraud, the banks complained to the postal service. Mr. Szuchman couldn’t go into specifics, citing trade secrets of the cyber crime unit. But the gist is this: After the USPS saw about a dozen bogus money orders, mostly in Brooklyn and within a short time, the NYPD made a few arrests, which led to a search warrant for a cell phone or two, which led to the epiphany that the money orders were coming from high-profile philanthropists, which eventually led back to the UJA, where the investigators found their first “insider” in an elaborate plot that was as much a jackpot for the cops as it allegedly had been for the bad guys.

“We’re working a normal case and we’re going to handle it the same way either way,” Mr. Szuchman said. “But we were aware of some of the individuals that were named in the indictment as victims—we’re aware of the size of some of those donors.”

There are no signs, however, that Pepsi and his co-conspirators realized they were pilfering from the über-elite. The big-name victims are listed in the court filings alongside less fabulous surnames of unlucky doctors, lawyers and realtors. The thieves didn’t care if a particular UJA donor had ponied up $18 or a million-dollar check, as long as it was attached to a valid checking account number or credit card.

The alleged conspiracy appears to have been almost leaderless, and it’s still unclear who started the scheme. Most of the defendants are under 30, some have gang affiliations, and all but five are from Brooklyn. “It’s very hard for us to figure out who started it and when they started it,” Mr. Szuchman said. “We don’t really know.”

The list is an ethnic and demographic mix: a Polish bank teller, a 37-year-old Hispanic UPS worker, a 19-year-old from Florida. Five defendants are still unidentified, known just by their pseudonyms: “King Joffy,” “Michelle Brown,” “Paul None Livingston,” “Kevin None Rodriguez” and “Chuck.” The Post made much of the case’s alleged gang roots: “Street gangs target the charitable and rich,” the paper reported, but the defendants are associated variously with the Bloods, Crips and a hyperlocal East Flatbush gang called the Outlaws—suggesting it wasn’t an organized street crime operation, as gangs don’t typically collaborate. Two persons of interest turned up dead during the 18-month investigation, but there is no evidence that the murders were linked to the conspiracy or the investigation.

The main force behind the investigation, which involved multiple cell phone taps and subpoenas for text messages, was the District Attorney’s Cybercrime and Identity Theft Bureau, of which Mr. Szuchman is the chief. The former Eliot Spitzer acolyte took the job after a brief stint as head of the New Jersey State Division of Consumer Affairs under Jon Corzine. He now supervises a crack team of prosecutors, cyber-crime analysts and digital forensic analysts who snoop through confiscated iPads, smartphones and computers for a damning digital trail, things like the Google history of Justin Waller, a man who killed his roommate last year and reportedly searched, “How long does it take for a dead body to smell?”

“Cyber crime” generally calls to mind a cunning geek in a Guy Fawkes mask, typing out the recipe for a dangerous virus or phishing up Bank of America passwords from his parents’ basement. The perpetrators of the INSIDERS case had no such savvy (and indeed, neglected to make their Facebook photos private).

“This is a cyber crime because of the way the crimes were committed,” Mr. Szuchman said in an email. “BlackBerrys and smartphones were key components to committing the crimes from communicating to trafficking the personal identifying information.”

Even so, the investigators were arguably the ones doing most of the cybering. Investigators eavesdropped on the suspects’ phone calls, read their text messages and of course peeked at their social media profiles (with a bag of popcorn, we imagine, based on portraits of Pepsi pouring bottles of Champagne and liquor onto the floor at a night club). The indictment even cites emails the conspirators sent each other with credit card account numbers. “It’s a strong case,” Mr. Szuchman said.

Pepsi was one of seven accused “buyers,” who paid for the stolen personal data, then used it or resold it. These buyers, with nicknames like “Gucci,” “Chin,” “Tugs” and “Tigga,” tied together what would otherwise have been a set of similar but disconnected crimes.

The other commonality was the source of the credit information: lowly employees at institutions who happened to have access to the finances of strangers.

One of the reputed four key “insiders” was Tracey Nelson, a 24-year-old who pushed papers at the UJA. Ms. Nelson snapped pictures of donor information with her BlackBerry or simply walked out with papers in her purse; she sobbed openly during her arraignment.

Glenn Abolafia is the court-appointed attorney for Ms. Nelson, who pleaded not guilty. “We’re just at the beginning of the case and there is a lot of investigation to do to see if any of the accusations make any sense,” he said.

Ms. Nelson’s live-in boyfriend, Robbie Millar, 26, worked at Audi and was “a big player,” according to the DA. The other two, smaller fries, were Nicola Bennett, a pretty 30-year-old employee of residential property manager AKAM Associates, and Karen Chance, a 32-year-old teller at Chase Bank at 36th Street and Seventh Avenue.

The DA has divided the conspiracy by roles: insiders, identity buyers, accomplice recruiters, check-makers and collusive account holders. The thieves had to get access to a bank account or credit card information and then cash out as fast as possible before the account was flagged for suspicious activity. Therefore, some conspirators allegedly printed fake checks at home and forged signatures. Other defendants cashed counterfeit checks and accepted fraudulent transfers through their own legitimate bank accounts from sources that, to any observer, would seem incredibly unlikely. In a typical transaction from the indictment, an unnamed conspirator used a debit card belonging to a defendant to deposit a fake check for $9,536 from hedge fund Paulson & Co. on June 18, 2010. The American Institute of Certified Public Accountants paid out $2,769 to defendant Cassilda Mitchell via a counterfeit check; defendant Nicole Leach Vitalis received a phony $9,000 bank transfer from viral marketing company Oddcast. The crew also bought electronics and other big-ticket items, which they got cash for from their 33-year-old fence, Younis Abidar, who sold them on the black market.

Others like the appropriately named “Treasure,” one 25-year-old Umar Credle, cashed USPS money orders, the practice that eventually got the ring busted.

Insiders stealing identities got hundreds of dollars per account, although rates varied. Chase accounts could fetch a higher price because the ring had at least three insiders working behind the counter who ensured the fraud didn’t set off internal alarms. Collusive bank account holders got perhaps a $100 or $200 cut per transaction.

In the end, Mr. Greenberg, Mr. Rennert, Ms. Oreck and the estimated 200 or so victims were reimbursed by the banks for their losses. “The Manhattan DA’s office informed us that this type of breach can happen in any organization, no matter how stringent its controls,” UJA said in a statement issued after the indictment; the organization declined to elaborate beyond its press release to The Observer. Calls to Open Road Audi were not returned.

The 55 defendants are being charged with various degrees of conspiracy, possession of stolen property, grand larceny and identity theft. As the DA tells it, JP Morgan Chase, TD Bank, Citibank, Discover and American Express took the hit for the $2 million or so that paid for flights, movie tickets and electronics and kept the defendants in Louis Vuitton and Yves Saint Laurent. Prosecutors say they have stacks of evidence against the accused, whose first pretrial hearings are scheduled for February. If convicted, at least they got to do it big for a while.

Mr. Ruprecht?

So far the art workers and their supporters have tried pranks, picket lines, an Occupy Wall Street alliance, a legal appeal to the National Labor Relations Board, and traditional negotiations, all to no avail. But perhaps a Christmas card will do the trick.

Sotheby's has yet to let its locked-out workers back in after more than four months off the job due to disagreements over their union contract. So now the workers of the Local 814, the Teamsters union that includes art handlers at Sotheby's high-end auctionhouse, have launched an email campaign comparing Sotheby's CEO William Ruprecht to Scrooge and claiming the Teamsters have no money to care for their Tiny Tims. The catalyst? The locked-out workers are on the verge of losing their health insurance.

The "Sotheby's: Bad for Art" campaign blasted out an email this morning: "How Sotheby's Stole Christmas," directing people to sign an online petition addressed to Mr. Ruprecht:

Sotheby's: Don't be a Scrooge

Dear  Sotheby's CEO William Ruprecht,

Sotheby's just celebrated its most profitable quarter in the company's history, and yet, you have locked out your hardworking, loyal art handlers--some have worked at Sotheby's for more than 40 years.

Not only are your employees now forced to face the holidays without jobs, but they will also be forced to ring in the New Year by losing their health care.

Stop being a Scrooge and end the lockout of your art handlers before January 1, 2012. Every working American deserves job security and health care.

(stern.nyu.edu)

Undergraduate tuition at New York University is around $41,000, but parents can be assured their bright young things are still getting The People's Education, reports the student newspaper The Washington Square News. NYU plans to offer not one, but two classes on the burgeoning social movement known as Occupy Wall Street, so that the 1 percent may study the 99 at both the undergraduate and graduate levels.

NYU, you may recall, had its own occupation in 2009. About 70 students barricaded themselves inside the cafeteria. According to the New York Times:

The students passed their first night chatting, reading and playing cards. They ate food they had brought, including apples, oranges, hummus and peanut butter. Some joined in an exercise session they called the “calisthenic dialectic workout,” stretching and jumping in place before adjourning for a discussion of Hegel’s philosophy that lasted nearly until daybreak.

The occupation ended after 40 hours when school security guards removed the barricade and suspended 18 students.

But next semester, NYU students can engage their predilection for revolution without the risk of getting kicked out. The sophomore level class, "Cultures and Economies: Why Occupy Wall Street?" counts for American Studies, Gender & Sexuality Studies, and Metropolitan Studies majors. The course description (emphasis ours) is as follows:

The Occupy Wall Street demonstrations are catching on across the United States, linking with popular discontent with economic inequality and financial greed and malfeasance around the globe. This course is designed to provide a background for these momentous events. We will examine the long history of finance, the impact of financialization on empires and regimes historic and present, and thesources and impact of economic, political, social and cultural inequalities. We will also investigate the conditions for challenges, uprisings and change. In addition, this course focuses on the relationship of “the economy” to broad histories of U.S. and global political cultures. Each week we will explore a set of issues, events, theories and approaches to economic topics, as we also consider the impact of social cleavages of race, class, gender, sexuality, region, religion and other factors. We will collaboratively analyze different ways of understanding U.S. cultures and economies in a global context, working to identify the factors that have shaped the world we now inhabit.

Yes, but what are the goals?

A poster for the protest

(Though not intended to be all-inclusive, this page will be updated as events occur. Have a suggestion? Leave it in the comments!)
Contents
Key Organizers and Affiliated Groups
NYPD and the City's Reaction
Media Coverage: Must Reads
Celebrity Support

Latest Updates

Update, Day 64: Newt Gingrich continues to call Occupiers names. A 24-hour drum circle begins outside Mayor Bloomberg's mansion, while in Oakland, police manage to clear Occupiers out of their camps "without incident."

Update, Day 63: The second marriage in Zuccotti Park...and it's a gay wedding! A video of police using spray on  University of California's demonstrators enrages protesters around the nation.

Update, Day 62: Newt Gingich says that there is no such thing as the 99%. OWS' new hero, retired police captain Ray Lewis charged, let out of jail, and put back in Zuccotti Park. The American Library Association condemns the destruction of the People's Library, photos of graphic police violence against resisting protester Brandon Watts are released, and Mayor Bloomberg's media team freaks out at media; everyone else.

Update, Day 61: Day of Action for OWS. Starts crazy, gets crazier. Over 300 arrested, including retired police caption Ray Lewis and N+1's Keith Gessen, and council members Jumaane Williams and Melissa Mark Viverito. Four NYPD officers injured. Brooklyn Bridge retaken by protesters, Verizon Building is illuminated by 99% message, Mayor Bloomberg stresses "minimal disruption" to the city despite all evidence to the contrary.

Update, Day 60: The aftershocks from the Monday morning raid are being felt all over. The New York Press Club demands an investigation of NYPD over arrested journalists. A former Philadelphia police captain, Ray Lewis, joins with the protesters. Everyone begins gearing up for Wednesday's "Day of Action," which marks the two-month anniversary of the protests.

Update, Day 59: An early morning raid of Zuccotti Park by police in riot gear catches everyone by surprise. Councilman Ydanis Rodriguez is beaten and arrested. Journalists (even accredited ones) aren't allowed near the site (for their own protection!) as police tear down the tents and destroy the People's Library (containing over 5,000 books). The National Lawyer's Guild serves a restraining order to the police and the mayor to stay away from Zuccotti; it is ignored. There are marches, protests, arrests, and Michael Bloomberg holds a press conference explaining that this was his decision, not Brookfield Properties (which owns the park). This is undermined by the fact that Brookfield Properties served up notices (via the police) during the raid. And the thank you card they sent Mayor Bloomberg afterward. It's really a mess. Eventually protesters are let back into the park, sans tents and sleeping bags.

Update, Day 58: Free flu shots in the park incite outrage. Ironically, these are the same people who complain about Zuccotti being a hotbed of disease. OWS and General Assembly create a new Statement of Autonomy, which is very confusing but basically reiterates that no Occupy Wall Street is a leaderless, non-political movement.

Update, Day 57: OWS' first wedding in Zuccotti Park! And it's a Muslim ceremony!And the couple has only known each other for a month after meeting at the protest! Both sets of parents are (probably) thrilled. Former NYPD officer Kevin Hiltunen drags protester out of Congressman Bob Turner's swearing-in session in the Bronx for being disruptive. It later turns out Mr. Hiltunen has a history of bothering congressmen himself.

Update, Day 56: Jay-Z's Rocawear website no longer selling Occupy Wall Street t-shirts. Maybe they couldn't get the copyright? 19 protesters arrested at Salt Lake OWS camp for refusing to remove their tents.

Update, Day 55: Occupy Your Block is created to help people start a movement from the comfort of their own neighborhood. OWS targets HarperCollins, which is really going to hurt the chances of selling their book idea. Herman Cain believes Occupy Wall Street is a pro-Obama conspiracy. In other insane news, Occupy Denver elects a border collie as its leader.

Update, Day 54: Another day, another protest at Sotheby's for the locked-out union workers. This one leads to eight arrests. New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman talks Occupy Wall Street. Joan Baez pays a visit to Zuccotti.

Update, Day 53: Zuccotti Park has its generators returned. The bull statue on Wall Street gets taunted by some clowns, who are then arrested. Mayor Bloomberg seems to be coming around on the protesters.

Update, Day 52: Time magazine panel for "Person of the Year" is split between Steve Jobs and an Arab Spring/OWS cover. A newly-appointed "Spokes Council" now works in conjunction with the G.A., handling the "day to day" business of the park...indoors. David Crosby and Graham Nash hold a concert for OWS.

Update, Day 51: Occupy Wall Street starts The Street Vendors Project, whereby people can donate money to the food vendors near Zuccotti Park, who will then donate food to the park's residents. Danny “Lotion Man” Cline removed from park by police after harassing/hugging residents. City Councilman Ydanis Rodriguez and State Senator Adriano Espaillat lead protesters on an 11-mile trek through NYC.

Update, Day 50: New York Post's Candice M. Giove spends a whole night down at Zuccotti Park, poses for sexy picture outside a tent, then talks about "the very real threat" of getting raped while down there. Gawker points out that while the sexual assaults are not to be taken lightly, Ms. Giove's story feeds into the fear-mongering crime angle the Post has been playing up lately in their front-page editorials.

Update, Day 49:  Former New York Governor David Paterson warns public not to underestimate power of OWS movement during a Real Time with Bill Maher segment. The Dark Knight is seen down on Wall Street. An all-female tent is erected.

Update, Day 48:  The New York Post starts their front-page condemnation of Occupy Wall Street, including a video on their website titled "Deranged homeless man goes on violent rampage in Zuccotti Park."

Update, Day 47: Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke jumps aboard the OWS-sympathy train. Stephen Colbert used a different tactic and tries to become the leader of OWS in a two-part special...which probably helps the movement more than Bernanke's support. The rest of the country learns what those spirit fingers mean, and how to make a "point of order" in General Assembly.

Update, Day 46: Barricades removed from area around Milk Street Cafe when Chief Deputy Mayor Howard Wolfson and New York Assembly Speaker Shelly Silver stop by for lunch. (Speaker Silver had petitioned Mayor Bloomberg for the removal of the barricades, along with a complaint about the noise in Zuccotti Park.) None of the employees are hired back. 26-year-old OWS kitchen worker Tonye Iketubosin is arrested after two women come forward saying that the Crowns Heights resident raped one of them and molested the other inside the newly-erected tents in Zuccotti.

Update, Day 45:  Protesters marched to Governor Andrew Cuomo's home only to find out that he's not at home. Again. Marc Epstein of the Milk Street Cafe on Wall Street says that he's been forced to lay off almost 25% of his employees, due to  the barricades in the area making it harder for customers to eat at his establishment. There is some debate over who should own the "Occupy Wall Street" trademark.

Update, Day 44:  Speaker of the House John Boehner says he "understands" and identifies with Occupiers frustrations. He then compares movement to Vietnam and Civil Rights protests...but only in terms of how "out of control" those demonstrations were. In other news, OWS takes part in New York's annual Village Halloween parade.

Update, Day 43:  Police crackdowns begin at the Occupations in Austin and Oregon. The police in Denver start using rubber bullets on its protesters. Pat Buchanan predicts protests will end "very, very badly."

Update, Day 42:  A blizzard hits Occupy Wall Street, protesters dance in the snow to keep their feet warm. Bike generators are used to replace the gas generators taken by the FDNY, while lawyers write the city on #OWS' behalf to petition for their return.

Update, Day 41, 10:40 a.m.: The NYPD and FDNY have removed all the protestors generators from Zuccotti. The protestors are calling it theft whilst the Majors office said in a tweet: “It’s illegal to store/use generators & fuel if it threatens public safety, so FDNY informed protestors that those items must be removed”.

Investigative journalist Greg Palast has done some digging and found how Goldman Sachs has taken back a measly $5,000 donation from a community bank, due to its involvement with OWS.

Damien Ma, Chinese analyst at The Atlantic, has written an interesting piece on the swathes of Chinese who are sympathetic to OWS.

Update, Day 40, 2:06 p.m.: Occupy Wall Street New York announces it plans to take on the health insurance industry by marching from Empire Blue Cross Blue Shield's headquarters near Zuccotti Park to St. Vincent's hospital. Banksy donates a sculpture to Occupy London.

Update, Day 39, 11:48 a.m.: Occupied Wall Street Journal launches a website. Police clash with protesters in Oakland. Brooklyn pol Vito Lopez leads an Occupy-themed march over the Brooklyn Bridge.

Update, Day 38: Tents at Zuccotti.

Update, Day 37: America was charmed by the kid piles during Parents Weekend at Zuccotti Park.

Update, Day 35: Protesters marched in Harlem this morning in an Occupy Wall Street-fueled demonstration against the N.Y.P.D.'s stop-and-frisk policy; Cornel West and as many as 30 were arrested, according to tweets from the ground. The protesters at Zuccotti Park continue to debate whether to change the government structure to allow working groups and caucuses to meet and make budgetary decisions without involving the entire General Assembly.

Update, Day 34: Residents of the financial district met for the Community Board 1 meeting at 250 Broadway to pass a resolution--the "good neighbor policy"--aimed at addressing the tensions between Occupy Wall Street and the neighborhood. Residents were most concerned about noise from drums, police barricades, and the defecation and urination of protesters in the area, in that order, but most attendees were supportive of the occupation. The protesters have established a Community Relations group which answers phone calls from residents at all hours.

Update, Day 31, 9:26 a.m.: Occupy Wall Street sends out a media advisory: "Occupy Wall Street Marks One Month at Liberty Square; Occupations Spread to Over 100 US Cities Movement For Economic Justice Gains Global Momentum." Woman who was pepper-sprayed will meet with prosecutors from the Manhattan District Attorney's office today; calls for transferring money from big banks to credit unions start to ramp up. Occupytheboardroom.org encourages protesters to find an executive pen pal.

Update, Day 29: A small afternoon run on Citibank ends in arrests; various media estimate crowds at Times Square at 6,000 to 20,000. Protesters regroup at Washington Square Park and decided to leave peacefully before the park closed at midnight.

Update, Day 28, 11:12 a.m.: Bloomberg called off the troops that were planning on kicking everyone out of Zuccotti today for a cleaning of the park. Hooray! Unfortunately, there was still mayhem involving the cops and the protesters, including at least 14 arrests, several beat-downs, and one instance of a police officer running over someone with his scooter. Occupy Wall Street is calling today a "victory," and are inviting parents to bring their kids down to the park tonight. They are also planning for a big Times Square Occupation Party this Saturday. ("Note, this is not a political party, but rather a "party" in the festive sense of the word.")

Update, Day 26th, 5:37 p.m.: Al Gore has tweeted out his support. He also blogged about it. Not that we didn't know where he stood before.

Update, Day 26th, 3:38 p.m.: Amanda Palmer from The Dresden Dolls is purportedly playing a show in Zuccotti Park at 4:30 today.

Update, Day 24, 11:00 p.m.: Kanye West made a surprise visit to Zuccotti Park, which caused people to lose their shit...literally...on the doors of NYPD cruisers. Meanwhile, there's been some debate over the legality of projecting images onto the sides of buildings, which ended, in typical Anarchist fashion, in a movie screening tonight.

Update, Day 23, 6:14 p.m.: The New York Times weighs in with a pro-protest Sunday editorial. The words "LAST CHANCE" appeared in skywriting; protesters speculated it had something to do with them, but it was in fact an unrelated act of art staged by Kim Beck. The Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Žižek turned up at Zuccotti Park to address the demonstration.

Update, Day 23, 4:31 p.m.: The second issue of the Occupied Wall Street Journal leads with Naomi Klein. Washington Square Park was occupied for a short time on Saturday. But then Anti-Flag came and played an acoustic set in Zuccotti Park so everyone moved back there. Yom Kippur services on Friday night were a success, and Ben & Jerry's officially support the movement. Free ice cream? Maybe!

Update, Day 22, 6:05 p.m.: If you can't afford to go to New York's hottest synagogues, there are free services in Zuccotti Park tonight. No tickets necessary. Twitter says it's not blocking #OccupyWallStreet, and we take stock of the post-Megamarch atmosphere. (There is a lot more media now.)

Update, Day 21, 10:57 p.m.: Barack Obama and Andrew Cuomo both weigh on in Occupy Wall Street...finally. President Obama said that those responsible for the crash weren't breaking the law. So maybe...time for new laws? OccupyWallSt.org put up footage from yesterday's rally in Foley Square, and announce that at least twenty people were arrested last night. But perhaps most importantly...Penn Badgley from Gossip Girl was marching last night! ZOMG!

Update, Day 20, 12:41 a.m.: Well, that went well.Thousands of  union workers and student protesters rallied in Foley Square to march to Zuccotti Park. Most people made it away unmaced... Keith Olbermann read the first collective statement of Occupy Wall Street on air. Elliot Spitzer was also on CurrentTV, asking President Obama to tell the NYPD to tone it down. Judging from the aftermath of tonight's Megamarch, it was too late.

Update, Day 19: 12:47 p.m.: Getting ready for the big student walkout and the NY unions joining in solidarity for the big 3:00 protest and 4:30 march. CNN business anchor Alison  Kosik writes mean things on her Twitter about the protesters, then deletes it. And then continues being mean.

Update, Day 19 12:35 p.m.: We snagged an interview with Jesse LaGreca, the well-spoken activist whose outtakes from an interview with Fox News went viral. Is he the smartest man on Wall Street?

Update, Day 18, 11:35 p.m.: Jeff Mangum—the lead singer of the now-defunct cult indie band Neutral Milk Hotel, who recently went on a small, very, very rare tour—stopped by Zuccotti Park tonight to play a few songs. Pitchfork captured the video from the Occupy Wall Street live stream. A few people who once resisted the allure of Occupy Wall Street may now be giving, just a little, for just this moment. To be fair, Jeff Mangum is not Thom Yorke. But it is still, objectively, fairly cool. In an especially bizarre turn, local blog Young Manhattanite presciently called this on September 30th.

Update, Day 18, 6:15 p.m.: The NYPD has erected one of their watchtowers over Zuccotti Park, lending a slightly Orwellian air to the proceedings that they may have lacked before. Also, further legitimacy. That, too.

Update, Day 18, 5:51 p.m.: A civil rights group has filed a class action lawsuit on behalf of protesters arrested on the Brooklyn Bridge in Saturday, Oct. 2's march.

Update, Day 18, 3:12 p.m.: We have updated our media/key players coverage section. Check it out! There is also a  rally with DC 37 workers at City Hall from 4-6 tonight, so hurry over!

Update, Day 18, 11:24 a.m.: Professor Rick Wolff, founder of Rethinking Marxism, will be holding an Economic Update at 5:30. But come early, so you'll have a seat (and airport) for the Internet Working Group at 5 p.m.

Update, Day 18 9:45 a.m.: Interested in yesterday's zombie infiltration? Here's a slideshow of the living dead protesting a zombie economy.

Update, Day 17 8:30 p.m.: Earlier today, protester Faith Laugier spoke on the steps of City Hall about her experience being arrested on the Brooklyn Bridge on Saturday. Referring to whether or not the NYPD gave warnings to people who chose to walk in the automobile traffic lanes instead of the pedestrian walkway, she said "We were not ever told we can't walk in that direction."

Update, Day 17 5:50 p.m.: Protesters are marching in tight formation, almost a single file line, due to N.Y.P.D. barricades on Wall Street and Nassau. Police vans are out on Williams and Wall Street and the subway stations on either side of the march are blocked with tape. Reports The Observer's Drew Grant, "Oh, there are all sorts of police vans here now."

Update, Day 17 3:30 p.m.: Peter from Peter, Paul and Mary and 9/11 firefighters are down at the protest with the "Wall Street zombies" today.

Update, Day 17 12:30 p.m.: Members of crooksandliars.com have donated more than $8,500 in "solidarity pizzas," the community announced.

Update, Day 17, 9:20 a.m.: Sotheby's looks to be the next target of the Occupy Wall Street movement, with a protest outside the homes of the auction house's biggest clients. It is also "dress like a zombie" day. Should be fun!

Update, Day 17, 9:00 a.m.: Unrest amongst the Occupy Wall Street organizers? That would seem to be the case (and the cause) with the Radiohead hoax, the responsibility for which has been claimed by someone on the inside going by the name J. Erin Stubbie, who was apparently fed up with "the vaguely tyrannical 'Arts and Culture committee'" of OccupyWallSt.org/General Assembly. Yikes. This individual also likes to play the media off each other, as they sent their note to both the Village Voice and Gothamist, threatening the Voice that if they didn't reprint the letter in its entirety, their competitor would. As if the media wasn't having a hard enough time figuring out what was going on inside the organizational structure of the protest: now there are Arts and Culture committee defectors?

Update, Day 16, 7:19 p.m.:Reverend Billy from the Church of Life After Shopping/Earthalujah is here (in McDonald's across from Liberty Plaza). Just yelled "I'll see you in People's Republic!" The New York Post is down at rally, positioning protesters for photos and asking a subject to take off his hardhat for a picture. Comedian Lee Camp is also down at protests, about to do a quick set. McDonald's is now the green zone: a place where cops and protesters stand in line and wait their turn like equals, not enemies. McDonald's manager says they have been "very nice" and accommodating to Occupy Wall Street activists. Definitely preferred hangout to Burger King.

Update, Day 16, 1:14p.m.: There's a nice breakfast spread on #occupwallstreet, day 16. There's talk of a march later today, though it's not on General Assembly's agenda. On the agenda is a 6pm Open Discussion on the 15M movement in Spain and a 7pm General Assembly. Oh, and spotted in the crowd: Geraldo Rivera!

Update, Day 15, 9:43 p.m.: Over 400 protesters arrested during Brooklyn Bridge march, including the person running Occupy Wall Street's live feed. Both Jonathan Franzen and Mark Ruffalo vocalize their support. The New York Times finally puts protests on front page, reporting accusations of "entrapment." Perhaps that's because its own freelancer Natasha Lennard will have to make bail?

Update, Day 15, 4:40 p.m.: Confirmation that protesters are being arrested on Brooklyn Bridge after being allowed to get halfway across. The New York Times is reporting the NYPD "cut the marchers off and plunged into the crowd" after blocking traffic for them. Clever trap.

Update, Day 15, 4:23 p.m.: Protesters are marching over the Brooklyn Bridge right now. Brian Stelter from The New York Times is taking Instagram photos. Police blocking traffic on other side of bridge.

Update, Day 15, 12:45 p.m.: Did you know that 700 airline pilots from United and Continental have already come out to support #OccupyWallStreet? Us either!

Update, Day 15, 2:49 a.m.: OccupyWallStreet.org has presented its first official press release, including a list of demands, in a document titled "Declaration of the Occupation of New York City."

• Update, Day 14, 8:49 p.m.:The Yes Men turn out not to be behind The Occupy Wall Street Journal. Second hoax?

Update, Day 14 3:30 p.m.: Radiohead rumors turn out to be a prank, OccupyWallStreet.org and General Assembly website down.

Update, Day 14 1:30 p.m.: Rumors are spreading that Radiohead will be playing a concert at Zuccoti Park at 4:00 p.m.

Background

Since protesters took up residence in Zuccotti Park near Wall Street on September 17, "Occupy Wall Street" has snowballed from a small gathering to a national movement covered by all the major news networks. "America's financial structure is broken! No more corporate bailouts! We are the 99 percent!" goes the rallying cry of a group that has not issued a list of demands but appears to have touched a dissatisfied nerve in the populace. Michael Moore showed up. The NYPD has been crucified due to its gratuitous use of pepper-spray. Radiohead almost played a concert. Or not really.

What do these protesters want? What or who is in charge? Can you compare Occupy Wall Street to the protests in Egypt and Libya, or is this the fun-house mirror image of America's own Tea Party? Here, a regularly updated guide to the little protest movement that just might....

What is Occupy Wall Street? A movement that began in a July edition of Canadian magazine Adbusters. Here is the original message:

Other groups have since joined in (see: "Key Organizers and Affiliated Groups" below), though the official website OccupyWallStreet.Org claims the movement is "not affiliated with Adbusters, anonymous or any other organization."

Livestream video of Occupy Wall Street

Previous Coverage:

• How Wall Street's McDonald's and Burger King Deal With Zuccotti Park Protesters
• “Zombies” Occupy Wall Street [Slideshow]
• From Blackout to Circus: The Evolution of Media Coverage at Occupy Wall Street
• Occupy This: How Occupy Wall Street Can Get the Attention of the 1%
• Radiohead Surprise Show Was a Prank! Occupy Wall Street Spokesman: ‘I Got Hoaxed’
• Daily Show Takes On “Occupy Wall Street,” Inspector Anthony Bologna
• The Indypendent Raise Money to Publish the Occupy Wall Street Journal[Updated]
• Wall Street Protesters Preoccupy Community Board
• Overnight at Occupy Wall Street
• Guess Where Former Gov. David Paterson Was?
• Did Bologna Use Too Much Pepper(-Spray)? District Attorney’s Office Investigates
• Conservative Tweets That Could Be From ‘Occupy Wall Street’ (Slideshow)
• Brookfield Bummer! Occupy Wall Street’s Occupation of Zucotti Park Will Continue, NYPD Says
• Second Video of Pepper-Spraying Officer Anthony Bologna + History Of Violence = NYPD PR Disaster
• 50 Portraits From Occupy Wall Street (Slideshow)
• Anonymous Goes After Cop In Wall Street Pepper-Spray Video
• ‘Occupy Wall Street:’ The Music Video
• Occupy Wall Street’s Media Problems
• ‘Occupy Wall Street’ Update: Alleged Police Brutality Caught In Pepper-Spray Video
• Some Signs as to What Those Wall Street Protesters Might Want [PHOTOS]
• ‘Occupy Wall Street’ Protesters Regroup at Liberty Plaza With Pizza, Tales of Battle
• The Wall Street Protesters: What the Hell Do They Want?

You could hear them a block away; their whistles and chants preceded them. About a hundred protesters stood outside Sotheby's at the beginning of the auction house's contemporary evening sale, the last important art sale of the year. "We're fired up! Won't take it no more!" The crowd outside Sotheby's was made up of N.Y.P.D., the auction house's security, students from Hunter College, union members and Scabby, the oversize balloon rat who never seems to miss a strike, as well as a Scabby-sized balloon fat cat who squeezed a cigar in one paw and a union worker in the other. Picketers hoisted cutouts of the heads of Sotheby's COO and CEO at the ends of long poles.

Most of the well-heeled buyers came from the north side, some shielding their eyes from the flashlights and camera flashes as they walked down a gauntlet of security guards. The women were mostly blond, dressed in black pencil skirts and clunking on tall black heels; the men were nondescript in suits and perhaps a coat. Some clutched the phonebook-sized sale guide; one woman jogged down the line as the protesters shouted "run!" Another woman looked horrified as a protester blocked her path inside; she tried to move around him, but was blocked by another protester who started blowing his whistle in her face. A Sotheby's staffer grabbed her and escorted her to the door, where she was further inconvenienced by being asked to provide ID. Once inside, we watched her recount the trauma to a Sotheby's concierge, who nodded along incredulously.

"Shame on you!" the protesters shouted at the one percent. "Go home!" An older gentleman standing near The Observer gave an enthusiastic thumbs down accompanied by a resounding "booooo!" One man on the other side of The Observer gave the Sotheby's clients the finger, only to have a curly, gray-haired buyer with a checkered scarf rise to the occasion with a French-accented, "Fuck you! Fuck you!"

Once inside, the gray-haired man stood behind the glass like a kid at the zoo, sticking out his tongue, mouthing obscenities, then zealously grasping an imaginary phallus, pumping it a few times into his mouth before he grew bored or realized there were cameras, at which point he walked toward the escalator that lead into the auction. "He's in Sotheby's a lot," said one of the Teamsters who used to be art handlers at Sotheby's before the auction house locked out its workers in August.

The Observer was crowded in behind a wooden police barrier just in front of the door. We prodded the Teamster to tell us who the buyers were. "The Mugrabi family is already in there," he said. "Oh! Larry Gagosian is here." A spectacled man with a bloated face walked brusquely by and slipped into one of the revolving doors. "Steve Cohen!" our guide identified. "That was Steve Cohen, the billionaire art collector."

Most of the auction attendees walked quickly past the scrum, cocking their heads to avoid the cameras and flashlights. One young man in a backpack cheered along with the picketers; another young, dark-haired gentleman walked through the gauntlet with his iPhone in front of his eyes, videotaping the penned-in mob.

The picket line was narrow; the protesters occupied a strip of sidewalk between the police barricades and a line of cars parked bumper-to-bumper along the curb. "They parked all these cars here so no one could get through," one Teamster theorized. We glanced at the outermost auto, a Lexus. It had a ticket tucked under the wiper. Late,r we realized all the cars had tickets. By the end of the night, the windshield wipers also pinned down fliers that said "Sotheby's Plays Fast and Loose with the Truth."

We saw one gentleman accept one of the fliers, whether he realized what it was or not, on the way into the auction house. It read, in part:

Sotheby spokesperson Diana Phillips told the NY Times that the venerable auciton house locked its experienced art handlers during contract negotiations because it was unwilling to accept demands that virtually double the cost of their contract.'

But there are no such demands. In fact Sotheby's is trying to starve the mostly minority workforce into submitting to management's draconian cuts in benefits hours and job security.

In August, Sotheby's reported its most profitable quarer in its 267-year history with profits soaring 48 percent from the previous year.

The protest reached a climax when at least three, possibly four--it was chaotic and hard to see--protesters attempted to get inside Sotheby's. They didn't get very far. The Observer recognized one union organizer, Eli Kent, the director of the LiUNA Local 78--not affiliated with the Teamsters--walking purposefully into the auction house. Once inside, he stood just behind the revolving door, staring intently at his co-conspirators. The protesters attempted to U-lock themselves together but security guards pounced quickly, dragging all of them outside. The protesters went limp as the police slapped handcuffs on. Other officers pushed back the agitated crowd, which had started rocking the barriers back and forth and beating drums with renewed vigor. But the crowd calmed down as the protesters were hauled away; we glimpsed Mr. Kent, with gritted teeth, a U-lock around his neck, his pant leg ripped, being carried away by two officers.

The Observer ran into Jason Ide, the 29-year-old president of the Teamsters Local 814, a union of about 1,000 art handlers, furniture movers and other tradesmen, and the man who led the union negotiations with Christie's auction house earlier this year without a hitch. He echoed the union line--Sotheby's brought in this lawfirm, Jackson Lewis, which is notorious for busting union chops. Sotheby's thinks the union workers will give up after a few months, he said, although he acknowledged it's possible that Sotheby's is trying to move away from union labor altogether.

The Observer wandered back to the south side of the entrance, where students and a few members of a brass band were taking their breaths. We found ourselves next to a UAW worker who shouted "Shame on you!" at two gentlemen who had just hopped out of a cab.

"They don't seem ashamed," we felt compelled to mention.

"No, they don't feel ashamed," she said. "But they do feel fear."

That rang true. Of all the Occupy Wall Street stunts--even the march to the homes of millionaires--this protest was the only one that felt like it had the real rumblings of class war. Even Vikram Pandit threw the OWS protesters a bone; but here were two unpersuadable groups, those with nothing to lose versus those with "fuck you" money. The faces of the buyers we saw trickling into Sotheby's revealed confusion and contempt, and the feeling was mutual. As we made tracks for the bus, we overheard one middle-aged protester crow: "The look on some of those rich motherfuckers' faces was priceless!"

Meanwhile, the sale netted $315.8 million, beating the estimated $270 million.