It was the usual scene not far from Wall Street.  A stream of commuters carrying leather briefcases and tall cups of coffee walked past the honey-locust trees and granite benches that dot Zuccotti Park in Lower Manhattan.  But, on Monday, as they made their way through the park, at Broadway and Liberty Street, those commuters also passed more recent additions to that half-acre landscape: slumbering figures wrapped in blankets, piles of backpacks and areas designated with hand-lettered signs as a library and a kitchen.  Over the last 10 days, Zuccotti Park, which is privately owned, has unexpectedly become a headquarters for hundreds of people from New York City and beyond who say they have gathered to protest financial inequity. They have used the park as a spot to hold mass meetings, a starting point for marches and as a campground, all while being closely monitored by the police.  “I believe this park empowers people,” said William Roper, a 33-year-old electrician who traveled from Bristol, Conn., to join the protests. “It has become an important place.”  The origins of the park are tied to One Liberty Plaza, a 54-story tower just north of the park. In 1968, the tower’s developers were permitted to add 500,000 square feet to their building in return for providing a public space, which was first named Liberty Plaza Park.  The park was badly damaged on during the 2001 terror attack. Afterward, Liberty Plaza’s current owner, Brookfield Office Properties, financed an $8 million renovation of the park. In 2006 it was renamed after Brookfield’s United States chairman, John E. Zuccotti.  Although many protesters have said that the park has been vital to their cause, not everyone has been pleased with its new role as staging ground for populist expression.  “We are extremely concerned with the conditions that have been created by those currently occupying the park and are actively working with the city of New York to address these conditions,” Melissa Coley, a spokeswoman for Brookfield, said in an e-mail.  Ms. Coley declined to describe what conditions were causing concern or to say whether Brookfield planned to ask the protesters to leave.  When the demonstrations began on Sept. 17, a sign at the park said that bicycling, skateboarding and rollerblading were forbidden there. But on Saturday, workers from One Liberty Plaza posted a new sign that included several additional rules that appear to have been created with the protesters in mind and which prohibited, among other things, camping, sleeping bags and tarps.  Meanwhile, the protesters, who have embarked on daily marches meant to call attention to a financial system that they say unjustly favors corporations and the rich, appear to have made themselves at home in Zuccotti Park.  Some people have taken turns sitting at a desk they have placed on Broadway flanked by an American flag and a placard reading “Welcome to Liberty Park.”  Inside, protesters have set up a library (including “The Complete Poems of Walt Whitman” and “Steal This Book” by Abbie Hoffman); and an “infoshop” with fliers and pamphlets about future demonstrations, including one called Stop the Machine scheduled for Washington next month.  There is a computer center powered by a gasoline generator, a kitchen where food is stored and distributed and a lost and found area. Some protesters have swept the grounds with brooms or collected trash in bags. Others have helped run lengthy meetings to discuss their aims and vote on ideas.  The unusual sights in the park have drawn a crowd of supporters, critics and the merely curious. There have been construction workers taking breaks from walking steel beams, wandering tourists and people who spend their working hours in nearby skyscrapers.  Among them on Monday was Michael S. Gioia, 26, a paralegal on a lunch break, who said he was skeptical of what the protesters might accomplish.  A few feet away, Eric Green, 30, from the Upper East Side, said he had recently lost a job as a construction consultant and had come to see the protesters for himself after reading about them.  “I see nothing wrong with what they are doing,” he said as he sat near the edge of the park. “They are exercising their right to free speech.”
Zuccotti Park, whose renovation was paid for by a financial services company, has been occupied by protesters taking aim at what they describe as the excesses of Wall Street.