As noted at the bottom of my previous post, some discrepancies emerged this morning between the account on the “Occupy Harvard” twitter feed of how the encampment’s doing (20-25 people there) and the account in today’s Boston Globe (a handful of people rotating shifts).
Well, this is an empirical matter which — unlike most matters disputed at Harvard — can be tested. So I set out this afternoon, a little after two, for another survey of “Occuburg,” as some of the occupiers reportedly are calling their tent city.
It turns out that the camp has again been left vacant in the afternoon, the fifth time I’ve found it vacant in a little over a dozen visits (in addition to November 12, November 18, November 19, and December 7). When the camp is staffed by only one person, that person always sits at the info desk (e.g., on November 14, here) — and today’s Boston Globe article notes the movement’s commitment to at least “keep an information tent continually staffed” while “the network of students and employees comprising the movement float in and out around classes, work, and exams.” Well, here’s a closeup photo of the info desk, inside the info tent, when I visited this afternoon:
There are three chairs, two of them empty and one occupied by a sign — no space occupants! Lest you think someone was visible elsewhere in the camp who I’ve cropped out in this photo, here’s the entire photo, which also illustrates the considerable number of people who walked through Harvard Yard this afternoon and saw an “Occupy” site left unoccupied (here 5 people are walking by the info desk, and two others are visible on the far right) — as always, click or download for a full-screen photo:
For those who’ve enjoyed my previous photos and statistics, the official score on people who were present exhibiting serious interest in the site this afternoon (setting aside the casual pedestrians) was: 4 photographers, 1 cop, 0 occupants.
As before, I count myself as the first photographer. Here’s the second photographer, snapping a photo of her friends at the Johnston gate using historic “Occuburg” as a backdrop (the sole Harvard University Police Department officer I encountered was sitting in the car to the right, and seemed to mostly be monitoring the gate; there were no brown-uniformed Securitas guards onsite this time, perhaps because there were no space occupants onsite):
Here’s the third photographer, also taking a photo of a friend in front of “Occuburg”:
And here’s the fourth photographer, in this shot taken from the west (he’s in black, just to the left of the dome):
Okay, maybe I cheated on that a bit — the photographer was taking a picture of the John Harvard statue (I didn’t actually see him photographing the camp):
So as not to let my remaining photos go to waste, for anyone who wants a sense of how much foot traffic there was in and out of Harvard Yard while “Occuburg” was vacant, and of the security presence at each of the four gates, just click on these photos:
Widener (south) gate: here.
Johnston (west) gate: here.
Thayer (north) gate: here, here, here, and here.
Lamont (east) gate: here and here.
–“Major Tom”
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