Exhibit

Courtesy of Boing Boing

Mayor Bloomberg going up in his own smoke?

Occupy Wall Street librarians, attorneys, and activists held a press conference Wednesday, 11/23, to discuss the destruction of the Occupy Wall Street Library in the wee hours of Tuesday morning, 11/15th and to demand that the City replace the books destroyed, acknowledge what happened to the books was wrong, and provide a location for the library to continue operating. 

As blogged earlier, N.Y.P.D. tore apart the library in the middle of the night, arresting librarians, and destroying, damaging, and confiscating books, laptops, art, original works, and a costly tent donated by rock legend Patti Smith.  Included in the lost works are religious texts from every faith, classics from Shakespeare and Doestoevsky, poetry, and weirdly, according to Huffpost, even a copy of Bloomberg's autobiography.  At the press coverage, examples of damaged literature bearing the People's Library stamp were exhibited on a table.

Courtesy of Washington Examiner and AP

Photographer:  David Caruso

Mangled, damaged books at OWS Library Press Conference

Occupy Wall Street Librarian Stephen Boyer managed to save the original poetry collection for the Occupy Wall Street Poetry Anthology as he and University of Pittsburg English Professor William Scott poignantly tried to hold the fort through the night saving literature as Bloomberg's police department hailed fire, then rain.

Mr. Scott reports in The Nation:

During the raid, Stephen Boyer, a poet, friend and OWS librarian, read poems from the Occupy Wall Street Poetry Anthology (see peopleslibrary.wordpress.com) aloud directly into the faces of riot police. As they pushed us away from the park with shields, fists, billy clubs and tear gas, I stood next to Stephen and watched while he yelled poetry at the top of his lungs into the oncoming army of riot police. Then, something incredible happened. Several of the police leaned in closer to hear the poetry. They lifted their helmet shields slightly to catch the words Stephen was shouting out to them, even while their fellow cops continued to stampede us. The next day, an officer who was guarding the entrance to Zuccotti Park told Stephen how touched he was by the poetry, how moved he was to see that we cared enough about words and books that we would risk violent treatment and arrest just to defend our love of books and the wisdom they contain.

Associated Press is presently reporting over 3,000 books destroyed out of a collection that had grown to over 5,000.  Librarians report 1,300 books recovered, with only 840 still in "useable" condition.  The remains of the library were hauled off randomly in anywhere of 26 trucks to a city sanitation garage.  OWS Librarian Michele Hardesty stated, "It is clear from what we saw at Sanitation that our books had been treated as trash."  AP reports on the exhibit table at least 2 bibles among "the filthy, mangled books."

Boing Boing says that, as recently as November 7, 2011, Mayor Bloomberg attended the New York Public Library's Library Lion Gala, considered one of NYC's top cultural and social events.  The event honors "distinguished individuals who have made significant cultural and educational achievements to increase our understanding of the world around us."

Courtesy of Boing Boing

There they lie.

More on the OWS Library Press Conference at the OWS Library website.