Wake Up, Billionaires: The Occupiers Arrive in the Hamptons

Featuring an early morning "billionaire wake-up call" with protesters on Meadow Lane.

The group, primarily members of New York Communities for Change - a progressive and grassroots non-profit organization that focuses on everything from taxing the wealthy to making affordable housing and fighting climate change - wanted to start with the summer home of the controversial chairman and CEO of the Blackstone Group , who supports Donald Trump, Stephen Schwarzman.

But they got the wrong house.

"We come to receive information indicating that it actually belongs to Ellen Schwarzman, his ex-wife,” said Alicé Nascimento, NYCC policy director. "And it may have been sold in 2017."

Never mind, said Alice Hu, climate activist for the organization: The second house on the list, from the hedge-fund manager and activist investor Daniel Loeb, was a three-minute drive away.

"We can start there and then go to Schwarzman," said said Ms Nascimento, who now understood it was about the Water Mill and wasn't about to miss the chance to troll a tycoon whose philanthropy stands out even among the super-rich for how often his name appears on buildings - see New York Public Library, Yale University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology. (In 2010, Mr. Schwarzman infamously compared President Obama's corporate tax hikes to Hitler's invasion of Poland, for which he later apologized.)

So the group put away their belongings – among them pots, pans, tambourines, a portable speaker, posters that read “WANTED FOR DEBTS TO SOCIETY” above the photograph of Mr. Schwarzman, and a pair of pitchforks. Instead, they headed, in the Toyota Highlander and an Uber borrowed by Ms. Nascimento, to the nearby mansion that Mr. Loeb, 60, bought in 2003 for just over $15 million.

NYCC has helped run primary campaigns against centrist Democrats, lobbied for big business and super-rich tax bills, and successfully helped make pass 2015 legislation that raised New York State's minimum wage for fast-food workers to $15 an hour.

But his most visible work is in live action, staging theatrical events that attract media coverage. (Naturally, a reporter was welcome to accompany Tuesday morning's protest.)

NYCC first came to the Hamptons in 2017 during a campaign for Wall Street Accountability they called Hedge Trimmers. In 2020, they returned for a tax-the-rich campaign called Make Billionaires Pay. (This year's campaign is Occupy the Hamptons.)

Inconvenient billionaires "is fun," said Ms. Nascimento, who in 2019 heckled Mr. Schwarzman during an onstage interview he gave to promote his book "What It Takes: Lessons in the Pursuit of Excellence". It was great therapy, she said, to see the look on Mr. Schwarzman's face when she asked him if he had any idea how much people are hurting because of his untrusted investments. respectful of the environment and its pursuit of deregulated capital...