BY ERIN EINHORN
DAILY NEWS CITY HALL BUREAU CHIEF
Anti-corporate protesters may think they can hang out indefinitely in a Financial District park, but Mayor Bloomberg is making no guarantees.
"We'll see," he said Friday when asked on his weekly radio show if he'll let the protesters stay as long as they want.
"People have a right to protest but we also have to make sure that people who don't want to protest can go down the streets unmolested," Hizzoner said.
"We have to make sure that while you have the right to say what you want to say, people who want to say something very different have a right to say that as well."
Bloomberg, a former Wall Street bond trader who made his fortune selling news and information to financial professionals, showed little sympathy for the weeks-long demonstrations against corporate greed and excess.
He noted that activists - some of whom have been arrested and have complained of mistreatment from the police - are attacking working people as much as rich executives.
"The protesters are protesting against people who make $40,000 and $50,000 year and are struggling to make ends meet," the mayor told WOR radio host John Gambling.
"Those are the people that work on Wall Street in the finance sector ... If the banks don't go out and make loans, we will not come out of our economic problems. We will not have jobs."
"The protesters are protesting against people who make $40,000 and $50,000 year and are struggling to make ends meet," the mayor told WOR radio host John Gambling.
"Those are the people that work on Wall Street in the finance sector ... If the banks don't go out and make loans, we will not come out of our economic problems. We will not have jobs."
Protesters have occupied Zuccotti Park for nearly two weeks. (Kevin Hagen for News)
Though the protests have centered around the privately owned Zuccotti Park, the mayor said the park must remain open to the public because of an agreement the owners struck with the city years ago to win zoning code changes.
That doesn't mean they can do anything they want there, he said.
"The right to protest is part of our culture," Bloomberg said. "It's also true that there are other societal concerns. You're worried about sanitation and you're worried about lots of different laws on the books."
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