At 5 a.m. Tuesday morning, before the day’s oysters were unloaded from their fishing boats and the first bikes were churned at SoulCycle, 16 protesters showed up at East Hampton’s Further Lane, one of the blocks the richest of one of the mega-rich in the country. enclaves. They were there to stage what they described as “billionaire wake-up calls”.
The group, mostly made up of New York Communities for Change — a grassroots, progressive nonprofit that focuses on everything from taxing the wealthy to making affordable housing and fighting climate change — wanted to start in the summer residence of the controversial president and CEO of the Blackstone Group, which backs Donald Trump, Stephen Schwarzman.
But they got the wrong house.
“We just received information that it actually belongs to Ellen Schwarzman, his ex-wife,” said NYCC policy director Alicé Nascimento. “And it may have been sold in 2017.”
It doesn’t matter, said Alice Hu, a climate activist for the organization: The Second House on the List, hedge fund manager and activist investor. Daniel Loebwas a three minute drive.
“We can start there and then go to Schwarzman,” said Ms Nascimento, who now understood it was at the Water Mill and wasn’t about to miss the opportunity to troll a tycoon whose philanthropy stands out. even among the super rich for how often he gets his name on buildings – see New York Public Library, Yale University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology. (In 2010, the infamous Mr. Schwarzman compared from President Obama’s corporate tax hikes to Hitler’s invasion of Poland, for which he later apologized.)
So the group packed up their belongings – which included pots, pans, tambourines, a portable speaker, posters reading “WANTED FOR DEBTS TO SOCIETY” above Mr Schwarzman’s photograph and a pair of forks. They instead 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 $15million.
The NYCC has helped run primary campaigns against centrist Democrats, lobbied for bills taxing big business and the super-rich, and successfully helped pass 2015 legislation that increased the minimum wage for fast food workers in New York State at $15 an hour.
But his most visible work is in direct action, staging theatrical events that attract media coverage. (Naturally, a reporter was welcome to accompany Tuesday morning’s protest.)
The NYCC first came to the Hamptons in 2017 during a Wall Street accountability campaign they called Hedgeclippers. In 2020, they came back for a campaign to tax the rich called Make Billionaires Pay. (This year’s campaign is Occupy the Hamptons.)
Embarrassing 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 unregulated capitalism. “He looked so angry,” she said. (Neither Mr. Schwarzman nor Mr. Loeb agreed to comment for this article.)
Jose Gonzalez, the group’s chief data officer, says he sometimes looks at campaigns and thinks, “What do we do?” He is aware that bringing plastic forks into the homes of billionaires will not cure climate change. (“We bought them at a Halloween costume store in Brooklyn,” Ms. Nascimento said.) Yet, Mr. Gonzalez said, even “demanding and forceful” campaigns with concrete goals are at their best with ” a touch of humor.
In New York, Ben Furnas, the former director of the mayor’s office for climate and sustainability, said the organization’s “sparkling actions” have produced tangible results on building emissions legislation. “They make good trouble,” he said.
Tuesday’s wake-up calls were the cornerstone of a five-day agitation in the Hamptons for an upcoming New York state bill to levy a tax on the wealthiest New Yorkers , which would be used to pay for green and affordable housing.
On Friday, around 150 people demonstrated on Main Street in Southampton outside the local outpost of Sant Ambroeus, the Milanese-style cafe where a cappuccino costs $8.50. Some of the posters they held up about land conservation for the Shinnecock Nation, the Native American tribe in the area, looked a bit dated by Jay Schneiderman, the town supervisor of Southampton. “A lot of what they’re asking for, we’re already doing,” he said, citing as an example land the city recently purchased to preserve the tribe’s ancestral burial grounds.
On Saturday, NYCC members – along with people from organizations such as the Long Island Progressive Coalition, the Suffolk Democratic Socialists of America and the New York Taxi Workers Alliance – marched near Meadow Lane in Southampton, also known as the name of Billionaire’s Lane. (It was home to real estate developer Aby Rosen, private equity guru Henry Kravis and Leon Black, the investment banker whose close ties to sex offender Jeffrey Epstein resulted in the loss of his presidency at the Museum of Modern Art and his position as head of Apollo Global Management.)
Afterwards, they went to Cooper’s Beach, to offer their support to the members of the Shinnecock Nation who resent their inability to obtain the coveted free parking passes that are given to residents of the village, despite having made an agreement in 1640 with the town’s white settlers that granted the tribe permanent access to the beach. On Sunday, they protested outside the Cartier store in East Hampton. And on Monday they placed a protester atop a 20ft tripod in the center of the road in front of East Hampton Airport, blocking access to the main entrance to the building, although anyone could always access the tarmac.
Overnight, around 30 NYCC-affiliated people stayed in – or around – a five-bedroom Airbnb in Southampton. Some slept in a U-haul out front. Others on deckchairs inside sleeping bags. Between Friday and Monday, 16 people were arrested.
Nascimento, 35, who grew up in Salvador, Brazil, received her BA from New York University in 2009 and in 2014 a master’s degree in public policy from Cambridge University. “Half of my classmates are McKinsey consultants,” she said.
“Ditto,” said Ms. Hu, 24, a first-generation Chinese-American who grew up largely in Champaign, Illinois, and in 2019 graduated from Columbia University. “I see them now and they ask me what prison is like.” She believes she has been arrested “six or seven” times for committing acts of civil disobedience, but not last weekend.
After leaving the house that may or may not belong to Mr Schwarzman’s ex-wife on Tuesday morning, Ms Nascimento and her crew cruised down Further Lane past the rolling greens of the historically white Maidstone Golf Club.
‘Looks like it needs a mow,’ Ms Nascimento said, shortly before parking on nearby Dune Lane. It was as close as protesters could legally get to Mr. Loeb; the short road to his house has a No Trespassing sign.
Winsome Pendergrass, a home care aide, led the crowd past Mr Loeb’s property in a series of chants which included “Billionaires you can’t hide, we can see your greedy side”. (Almost all the clapboard mansions behind her were obscured by hedges.)
Mr. Loeb, a top donor to Congressional Republicans as well as former Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Mayor Eric Adams, has committed millions of dollars to LGBT causes and has been a strong supporter of justice reform penal and charter schools. He also courted controversy. In 2017, he wrote a Facebook post comparing a black state senate member to the Ku Klux Klan.
None of the neighbors came to watch. But someone appeared to have called 911. A police car arrived, just as protesters were leaving to find Mr. Schwarzman’s house. (“We never get permits,” Ms. Nascimento said.)
After 15 minutes, the car passed a mansion cleared of gates or shrubbery. “Wow, that’s huge,” said Jeremy Maldonado, a 26-year-old janitor and Uber driver who usually recruits people for climate change causes while longboarding around the city.
Shortly after, cars parked in a cul-de-sac overlooking Mecox Bay and protesters again removed anti-Schwarzman signs. This time they could walk up her driveway to the front of a white wooden gate. But the property, bought in 2005 for around $35 million, was largely obscured by trees. Still, Ms. Hu had to admit one thing: “It’s good.
It seemed to energize her on the mic. She railed against the Blackstone Group’s past investments in fossil fuels and fracking. “As he condemns us to a miserable future, he lives here in this beautiful house with these beautiful trees, next to this beautiful bay.”
“And that clean air,” someone shouted.
At 6:15 a.m., the action was over. “People have trains to catch,” Ms. Nascimento said as she got into the car and put the key in the ignition.
She looked to the right and noticed a man standing in the aisle beside. He wore the typical Hamptons uniform — a black polo top, something khaki down — and took a video on his iPhone. With the window open, Ms. Nascimento shouted, “Your neighbor sucks.” (Mr Maldonado noted that he believed the man had a walkie-talkie and was actually security personnel.)
The Toyota is gone. The birds were singing constantly. The only souvenir left behind was the anti-Schwarzman poster, left at his front door, propped up by two pitchforks.
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