Occupy 'Guitarmy' Marches Over Brooklyn Bridge, Occupies Barclays

Occupy Wall Street's "Guitarmy" (a subset of the OWS Music Working group) marched over the Brooklyn Bridge about 5:30 p.m. Thursday en route to Barclays Center, where they and other groups planned a candlelight vigil and overnighter leading to a Jay-Z teach-in tonight.

Millionaire rapper Jay-Z -- part-owner of the Nets -- will be putting on a show at the arena tonight, the first official performance at Barclays. (Expect massive traffic jams, warns "Gridlock Sam.")

Today at 11 a.m., local residents will speak about the impact (presumably negative) of Barclays on their lives. Performances take place from noon to 4, including the Reverend Billy and the Tax Dodgers. At 8 p.m., there will be a free outdoor screening of the Battle for Brooklyn. More events take place throughout the weekend. (Brownstoner has the schedule; Atlantic Yards Report has links to more schedule.)

On their website, The Occupy Guitarmy offers a response to Jay-Z, who said in the NY Times that OWS’s actions are “un-American.”

They say:
"Jay-Z 'supported' Occupy earlier in its first, highly media-friendly moments through his entrepreneurial selling of 'Occupy All Streets' t-shirts, although he refused to donate any of the profits of his sales to support the activists and received wide-spread negative publicity for his crass appropriation of the movement’s language.

"Now Jay is rolling with even more powerful and popular friends, namely the LIBOR-scandal leading bankers at Barclays, who put their name on the controversial Brooklyn arena where Jay’s basketball team will play and where he will play eight nights to inaugurate the venue."

More here.

Photos by MK Metz

Go to McBrooklyn's HOME PAGE.