For two months this fall, Zuccotti Park, squeezed deep in a canyon between bankers skyscrapers in lower Manhattan, was the site of an extraordinary political action. Home to the hundreds of anti-capitalist protestors who camped there overnight, and the thousands who visited to join the protest, the park became a magical place: a communion of sharing and consensus in the heart of a citadel defined by greed and oligarchy.In the early hours of Tuesday November the 15th the occupier’s camp was destroyed when police swept suddenly into the square, tearing down the tents, library, kitchen and medical center, and arresting hundreds. For the multitude supporting the action it was a heart-rending moment. But if the occupation at Zuccotti was destroyed that night, the movement it spawned across America has only just begun. Issues of equality and democracy, absent from mainstream political discussion in the United States for decades, are today springing up everywhere.Now, in a new book assembled by a group of writers active in support of the occupation, the story of Occupy Wall Street is being told. Occupying Wall Street draws on extensive interviews with those who took part in the action to bring an authentic, inside-the-square history to life. In these pages you will discover in rich detail how the protest was devised and planned, how its daily needs were met, and how it won overwhelming support across the nation.In a vivid, fast-paced narrative, the key events of the occupation are described: the pepper spraying of young women corralled between plastic fences by the NYPD; the mass arrests on the Brooklyn Bridge; the victory on October 14th when an announced “clean up” of the square was abandoned by a mayor’s office fearful of a PR disaster; and the eventual storming of the occupation that brought it to an abrupt end. Woven throughout are stories of daily life in the square focusing on how the kitchen, library, media center, clean-up, hospital, and decision-making at the General Assembly functioned, all in the words of the people who were there.The future course of Occupy Wall Street remains unclear. But one thing is starkly evident: Under the banner “We are the 99%” the protest has given birth to America’s most important progressive movement since the civil rights marches half a century ago. This is the story of that beginning.Writers for the 99% is a group of writers and researchers, active in supporting Occupy Wall Street, who came together to create this book. A list of all those contributing will appear at the back of the book.”I’m awfully glad these writers were taking notes and recording this history as it happenedOWS is one of the most important developments in this country in many a year, and we need to understand how it happened and where it might go. This volume goes a long way toward filling that need!” -Bill McKibbenAll profits from this book will be donated to Occupy Wall Street.Writers For The 99%The KitchenIf the Zuccotti Park encampment was “semireligious,” as Rolling Stone magazine said that many in the park described itand “a spiritual insurrection,” according to Adbusters editor Micah White, then one of the occupiers most holy acts was visiting the kitchen to get breakfast, lunch or dinner. Heather Squire found her calling among the pizza boxes, the peanut butter and jelly, and the lines of OWS sleepers and day trippers, hands outstretched, waiting to be dished up a meal. Arriving at Zuccotti for the first time on October 1, Squire, 31 years old and with a BA in sociology, said shed spent the four years since graduation filling out applications for entry level jobs sometimes directly, but more often only vaguely, related to her degree. Shed gotten nothing, and her most recent job had been as a $150 a week deliverer of sandwiches. In the park she recalled that she knew a lot about food: since age 14, shed worked in restaurants, as a server and in the kitchen. She joined the OWS Kitchen Working Group.The kitchen lay in the park’s center, and in its first weeks it stayed open 24/7, stocked with a glorious hodgepodge of donated food. A middle aged woman from the Bronx brought a hefty pot of chili. “My husband’s in the Transport Workers Union,” she said, as though no further explanation was necessary. Others dropped by with fruit, bagels, cookies, hummus, casseroles. Responding to a list of nearby restaurants that delivered, posted on OWS’s Web site, the world used its credit cards to purchase takeout for the occupiers. The owner of Liberato’s Pizza, near Wall Street, told the New York Times he’d received orders from all over the U.S. and from Germany, France, England, Italy and Greece. The Kitchen Working Group’s Twitter account buzzed with exclamation marks and thank yous. “Fresh picked apples from Vermont!” enthused one tweet. “Shout out to Nancy in New Mexico for ordering us crazy good food from Katz’s Deli!”In those early days, according to Heather, kitchen workers mostly opened boxes and washed dishes. But the impromptu nature of donations and deliveries made things touch and go. “WE NEED LUNCH!” one Kitchen Working Group tweet entreated. “SEND #OCCUPYWALLSTREET food!” WE’RE HUNGRY!” The occupation began giving the kitchen a budget of up to $1,500 a day for supplementary catering. Some volunteers started cooking in their own, small apartment kitchens. This was necessary because park rules forbade the use of flames to prepare food, and electrical power in Zuccotti was severely restricted.