The day before the violent events of the six-month anniversary of Occupy Wall Street, a few dozen people were hanging out in scattered clumps in Zuccotti Park. Most were young kids clustered in bunches around Joie de Vivre, the big red thing at the park’s northeast corner. It was late afternoon and they were talking and laughing. At one point some of them broke into a raucous chant about pizza. The weather was unseasonably clear and mild. Police lined the park’s four edges, on both the park side of the streets and across the streets as well as in the streets themselves, in dark blue and shiny gold, standing most often in clusters of two and three. There were no fewer than a dozen police cruisers visible within shouting distance, as well as the surveillance tower with its tinted windows and security cameras pointed at quiet empty stretches of the park. Later I would walk closer to the surveillance tower to see if I could see anyone inside. I couldn’t, which I suppose is the point.

Knowing that the next day would bring many more protestors and, reliably, many, many more police to the park, I wanted to see what the place looked like just before, in those moments that I’m certain the police consider their down time: that twilight hour before they would once again get violent with the nonviolent occupiers gathered there to commemorate the anniversary and continue the struggle. A lot of the attention thus far has been given to the acts of police violence at Zuccotti these past six months, and for good reason. But I was also interested in trying to get a sense of what the space looked and sounded like in that calm before (or after) the violence. I wondered if there was anything worth seeing or understanding about such a time and space.

Most of the park’s benches are actually wide rectangular seating platforms that resemble something closer to sarcophagi than traditional park benches, laid out in a grid across the upper portion of the park like the carapace of some enormous submerged stone beast. If you were to drape each one with a flag the park would look like the loading bay of the aircraft that carry the bodies of dead soldiers to their final resting places. On the north side of the park a very serious-minded officer stood atop one of these bulky structures, at attention in the wide stance meant to denote a casual exercise of authority. Nearby another officer made occasional small talk with two young men tuning their guitar and banjo. The officer standing atop the bench was having none of it. His back was to his comrade and the musicians. He stared blandly and unflinchingly at the kids who stood around joking and laughing.