More protests are planned in the US after the weekend arrests of 700 people on New York's Brooklyn Bridge fueled the anger of anti-Wall Street protesters.
The Occupy Wall Street protest started with fewer than a dozen college students spending days and nights in Zuccotti Park, a plaza near the city's financial centre.
New York City officials "thought we were going to leave and we haven't," 19-year-old Kira Moyer-Sims of Portland, said. "We're going to stay as long as we can."
Police said the department will continue its regular patrols of the area. And "as always, if it is a lawful demonstration, we help facilitate and if they break the law we arrest them," NYPD spokesman Paul Browne said.
A map of the country displayed on the plaza identified 21 places where other protests were organised.
Wall-Street style demonstrations were staged in front of Federal Reserve buildings in Los Angeles, Chicago and Boston. A group in Columbus, Ohio, also marched on the capital city's street. And signs of support were rearing up outside the US. In Canada, a rally is planned for later this month in Toronto.
Campers take turns organising a "general assembly" on the plaza where they divide tasks among themselves. Police watched yesterday as activists awoke in their makeshift beds. Later, members of the NYPD moved in and ordered some of them to dismantle what police said were "dwellings."
The campers also have been fueled by encouraging words from well-known figures, the latest actor being Alec Baldwin, who posted videos on his Twitter page that had already been widely circulated. One appeared to show police using pepper spray on a group of women, another a young man being tackled to the ground by an officer.
"This is unsettling," Baldwin wrote. "I think the NYPD has a PR problem."
Some said protesters on the Brooklyn Bridge were lured onto the roadway by police, or they didn't hear the calls from authorities to head to the pedestrian walkway.
Police said no one was tricked into being arrested, and that those in the back of the group who couldn't hear were allowed to leave.
The NYPD released video footage yesterday to back up its stance. In one of the videos, an official uses a bullhorn to warn the crowd. Marchers can be seen chanting, "Take the bridge."
AP