Earliest Occupy Wall Street, circa 2000

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   Pierce R. Butler

   July 16, 2012 at 10:27 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment

   The first and most inspired on-the-scene Wall Street protest happened in the ’60s, when Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin entered the spectators’ gallery above the trading floor and started throwing cash over the railing.

   Dozens of high-powered traders dropped their million-dollar deals and started scrambling around on all fours for low-denomination bills. It didn’t last long before security guards hustled the two Yippies out, but it provided an illustration of Street greed that no complicated financial scandal could match for sheer obviousness.

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   Justin Griffith

   July 16, 2012 at 12:18 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

   Is there footage of this? Sounds awesome!

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   Pierce R. Butler

   July 16, 2012 at 11:25 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

   There was no video, so by present standards (1st page of YouTube results) it didn’t happen.

   I read some “underground press” accounts, and both Hoffman & Rubin described it in their memoirs. Can’t remember seeing it in the corporate press, but didn’t read that much at the time anyway.

   The Pfft says they got a lot of coverage:

   Another one of Hoffman’s well-known protests was on August 24, 1967, when he led members of the movement to the gallery of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE). The protesters threw fistfuls of real and fake dollars down to the traders below, some of whom booed, while others began to scramble frantically to grab the money as fast as they could. [7] Accounts of the amount of money that Hoffman and the group tossed was said to be as little as $30 to $300.[8] Hoffman claimed to be pointing out that, metaphorically, that’s what NYSE traders “were already doing.” “We didn’t call the press”, wrote Hoffman, “at that time we really had no notion of anything called a media event.” The press was quick to respond and by evening the event was reported around the world. Since that incident, the stock exchange has spent $20,000 to enclose the gallery with bulletproof glass.[9]

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   Justin Griffith

   July 17, 2012 at 4:29 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment

   Badass. Thanks for sharing beyond the ‘present standard’.

   +1 ARPANET