Forum Post: An interesting bit of Zucotti Park history - it began with a protest & that song about millionaire's
Posted 13 years ago on Oct. 24, 2011, 10:59 p.m. EST by thebeastchasingitstail
(1912)
This content is user submitted and not an official statement
Well, I was googling for something else and found this.
I'm a big CFON fan, anyone else? Better coffee a millionaire's money can't buy.
Resistance runs deep at Zuccotti Park. You might even say it’s in the ground. The protesters clinging tenaciously to that little parcel in Lower Manhattan owe a big spiritual debt to Chock Full o’ Nuts.
In 1967, William Black, the Chock Full chairman and founder, refused to surrender the long-term lease for his luncheonette at Broadway and Cedar Street, what is now the southeast corner of the park. His obstinacy set back completion of the park by 13 years and was so celebrated in its day that it became a case study in “Holdouts!” (McGraw-Hill, 1984), by Andrew Alpern and Seymour Durst.
Read more, including the comments which had some good info: http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/10/19/holding-out-at-zuccotti-park-is-a-44-year-old-tradition/
It was only recently named Zucotti Park (Zucotti was a wealthy Wall Street guy, by the way).
It was originally named something else (can't remember); just some little 'park' where - ironically - Wall Street guys would come to eat lunch. After 9-11 it was renamed Liberty Park, and then more recently Zucotti Park after some Wall Street guy.
Yea, John Zucotti, he was a deputy mayor or something at one time, too, and he was also part of Brookfield Properties.
And I'm pretty sure the original park name was Liberty Plaza ; ) because it is on Liberty St.
I think the park should be bought by the federal government some time soon as it is bound to acquire HISTORICAL SITE status as "the place where the Worldwide Revolution for Social Justice started".