Demonstrators Test Mayor, a Backer of Wall St. and Free Speech

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s evolving response to the Occupy Wall Street protest has come to embody a central tension in his third term, between his celebration of free, and at times cacophonous, speech as a hallmark of New York, and his emphasis on bolstering the city’s economy by improving its appeal to residents, employers and tourists.

Mayor Bloomberg, who is generally known for his decisiveness, at first emphasized his disagreements with the protesters, then began describing them as peaceful dissenters exercising a fundamental liberty. In the last several days, he has sounded increasingly exasperated, a reflection of complaints from neighbors and accusations of criminal activity in Zuccotti Park. “There is no easy answer,” Mayor Bloomberg said. “But there is a right answer, and the right answer is allow people to protest, but at the same time enforce public safety, provide public safety and quality-of-life issues, and we will continue to do that.”

The mayor is in an awkward position — while the protesters proclaim themselves “the 99 percent,” Mayor Bloomberg, with a net worth estimated by Forbes at $19.5 billion, is an elite member of the top 1 percent, the 12th richest person in a nation of 312 million. His wealth derives from Wall Street, the target of the protesters’ ire, and he has repeatedly made clear that he does not support the demonstrators’ arguments or their tactics. Mayor Bloomberg has managed simultaneously to be less sympathetic to the protesters’ point of view, and more sympathetic to their right to protest, than some other elected officials around the nation. “There’s nobody that’s more of a defender of the First Amendment than I am,” he has often said.