Even diehard true-believers have to eat, and for those in the Occupy Wall Street protest, that means eating food prepared not in Manhattan, but in Brooklyn.
Food for Occupiers in Zuccotti Park is being cooked in Boerum Hill and East New York, shipped to Lower Manhattan in donated vans and, occasionally, yellow taxi cabs.
The amount of food required to meet demand has reached a peak since the protests began in mid-September, Chef Eric Smith said. The voluntary kitchen staff, constantly shuttling food in from Brooklyn, is now preparing three meals a day for nearly 2,000 people.
Sean Dolan, chief cook at the protest, says one problem organizers face is an inability to “discriminate” between protestors and freeloaders.
“Rich people can come looking like homeless men, protestors can come in suits,” he explained. “We have to serve everyone.”
Dolan came to Zuccotti Park after being laid off from a restaurant in Massachusetts, where he was a cook.
“I lost my job, and three hours later I was on a train to New York,” Dolan said.
But free handouts in Zuccotti are hurting others. One vendor, Aly Amin, a resident of Bay Ridge, has been working in the park since 1991. His profits are down 40 per cent.
“I hear what they are saying, but they should say it and leave,” Amin said. “None of the business men want to come to me anymore,” he explains, and the protestors “have no money.”
Amin has already lowered prices, he says. But that has not been enough to resuscitate his business.
Read exclusive stories on unemployment in Brooklyn here.
Continental breakfast is offered until 9:30 am at the protest’s food stand, after which a hot meal of eggs and marinated potatoes is served. Sandwiches are typically on offer for lunch, and dinners are hot meals, such as Chinese food or pasta. All meals are free.
According to a report from The New York Post last month, most of the produce is organic from farms in upstate New York, Connecticut and Vermont.
One protestor, Brian Thomas, arrived from Maine twelve days ago, and now calls Zuccotti Park home. He says he alternates between eating from vendors and the free food station, which he says is often “delicious.”
“It’s like a catered graduation party,” he said, as he ate the morning’s offerings.
Soon, OWS organizers plan on moving all operations to The Commons Brooklyn, on Atlantic Avenue, where only some of the food is now cooked. Organizers plan on moving out of their second location, Liberty Café, a soup kitchen in East New York, due to its distance from the protest.
Smith says they are also looking at spaces in Red Hook for their operations, which they expect will expand in the wintertime, when everything will have to be stored and prepared indoors.
“We’re in preparation mode,” Smith said.
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