I have had an NYPD-issued press pass twice. In New York City, the press is "credentialed" by the police department, independently of the City, at its discretion. The process is slow and you have to go downtown for quite a while. Both times I have been very careful to play their game. You have to bring published clips, among their required materials, that prove you need to deal with things like "robbery scenes, fires, homicides, train wrecks, bombings, plane crashes, where there are established police or fire lines at the scene." Now I'm by no means a real reporter's reporter, but I succeeded both times by bringing past stories that had, like, scenery of Hillary Clinton in a St. Patrick's Day parade and what have you. On my most recent successful trip, I went with real reporters—and some of them got denied, and most definitely shouldn't have been, while by working the system, I scored. The point that you'd need to be already doing that reporting to get credentialed (by the police!) to do that reporting is a good one. All this is a preamble to pointing out that yesterday we got used by the mayor's office. READ MORE

So Mike Bloomberg's eviction of Occupy Wall Street has actually resulted in a large protest this morning that is actually occupying Wall Street. You just know there's a team of mayoral advisors, familiar with the First Amendment, who are sitting in an office right now with their arms crossed, being all "la la la, told you so." More good pics here. Arrests are already taking place.

Photo by CBC superfox David Common.

What’s next for the Occupy Wall Street movement as it regroups after its eviction from Zuccotti Park? A small but energetic group of New York City education activists hope the Occupiers will channel their rage toward Mayor Mike Bloomberg by taking a closer look at his local school reform record. READ MORE

This is a neat bit: Mayor Bloomberg gets to respond to the letter sent by four officials who represent downtown Manhattan and agree that Occupy Wall Street is a Menace 2 Society in the Hood. But the letter has three claims: drumming is too loud at night (that's already fixed), there's public urination (likely not that fixed, but then, welcome to New York), and there are too many police barricades. WHY WON'T OCCUPY WALL STREET TAKE DOWN THEIR POLICE BARRICADES? So Bloomberg's response? “It’s an occupation of a growing, vibrant residential neighborhood in Lower Manhattan, and it’s really hurting small businesses and families." With police barricades. READ MORE

It's been quite a morning for Occupy Wall Street, which didn't find out until nearly this morning's deadline that the City was going to back down from evicting the protest for "cleaning." Here's how it all went down for them (and some others too). READ MORE

Today would be a good day to take a pass on attending Occupy Wall Street's "General Assembly" at 7 p.m. (although the 6 p.m. meeting on "Organizing Effectively Without Hierarchy" sounds cool and the 2 p.m. Structure Working Group meeting is a blessed thing). Because tonight, you're going to find out who's a cynic and who's naive, and it's going to get heated consensus-style, as the group addresses Mayor Bloomberg's demand to come in and "clean up" Zuccotti Park, starting tomorrow. The park's landlord's letter to the NYPD, dated Tuesday, asking for help, is full of practical, liability-insurance-based complaints but also has plenty of nonsense, and it's the "unsanitary and unsafe" claim appears to be resonating. So this is likely to escalate into a real and troubling confrontation; there's almost no way Occupy Wall Street can give up the park—but protesters should know that the City doesn't back down once it's said it's going to do something. (Photo from last night by Harrie van Veen.)

ANGRILY SHAKING MY HEAD. (From Rebecca Mead's subscriber-only Talk of the Town today on Diana Taylor, who is Mike Bloomberg's human companion.) Good grief, go back to undermining unions, Wilbur Ross, before we send in all the mannish professional women who don't care about showing you their legs.

I get all suspicious when I hear about a "growing outcry," in the classic Times parlance. This particular "outcry" is said to have led to the cancelation of Mike Bloomberg's weekly radio chatfest, and is over the resignation of deputy mayor Stephen Goldsmith, who is at least five different kinds of schmuck. (This is snowstorm removal failure dude!) The mayor's office said he was leaving to pursue private sector work; but when Goldsmith resigned, he himself cited his recent arrest, which has now been made public. This "hiding" of a "crucial detail" (more Times parlance) has "engulfed his administration in controversy" and has "roiled New York’s political world." (Sheesh, sounds like the Hindenburg hit City Hall!) So various future mayoral candidates (from Scott Stringer to Jon Liu) and some nonprofit folks and a couple of newspaper editorial boards are angry. READ MORE