[caption id="attachment_68773" align="alignright" width="600" caption="Mayor Menino."]
BOSTON --- Just in time for Christmas, protesters have been evicted from the Rose Kennedy Greenway by Boston police, bringing an end to the 70-day encampment of Occupy Boston.
The ouster of the group, which had been protesting corporate greed and economic inequality, came at 5 a.m. on Saturday, December 10, when police rousted the sleeping campers following a judge's ruling earlier in the week that they did not have a right under the First Amendment to "seize and hold" the land.
Forty-six of the occupiers were arrested at the site for trespassing after they refused to leave the area.
Police superintendent William Evans told reporters that he was pleased that the eviction occurred without any violence.
"Our operation plan went very orderly, very methodically," Evans said. "No one was injured, and there were no confrontations whatsoever."
The end to the occupation brought relief to the directors of the Rose Kennedy Greenway Conservancy, who had been asking Mayor Thomas Menino since early November to take action because of the deteriorating conditions on the land, which had been named in honor of the matriarch of the Kennedy clan.
A landscaping restoration project is now continuing at the muddied site, which is expected to cost $50,000. Bulldozers, garbage trucks, and graffiti-removal paraphernalia were at the encampment throughout the weekend of the eviction.
Menino's slow, measured response to the occupation has drawn criticism from some who say that the $1 million in police overtime could have been better spent on more pressing community needs.
