One, Edward T. Hall III, 25, was barefoot and dressed in loud, multicolored tights. He wore a beaded American Indian necklace and New Age jewelry, with a baseball cap pulled sideways over his long hair. . . .
Mr. Hall is a well-educated young man with a privileged upbringing who said he was following a calling greater than getting a job and making money. He said he saw the protest as a global movement to help fight poverty and economic inequality. He has spent the past month sleeping in the park and is one of the organizers of the protest. . . .
Mr. Hall — who, when told the meeting would be indoors, ended up covering his bare feet with a pair of women’s rubber boots — went for a cappuccino.
The two men made cordial small talk at first. Mr. Hall said he played squash. . . .
Mr. Hall said that he grew up in New Mexico and that both his parents were politically active lawyers who were thrilled that he was pursuing a socially conscious life and was involved in the Occupy Wall Street protest. Mr. Hall said he attended Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh and then transferred to Bard College in upstate New York because of its reputation as a socially conscious school.
He had been renting in Washington Heights for the past two years while attending doctoral classes at Columbia University as a nonmatriculated student. He said that he supported his modest lifestyle with savings from working as a teenager and that he also had “a small trust fund” from his grandfather that he had not drawn from yet. For the past four weeks, he has eaten free meals and has slept in the park. . . .
Mr. Hall kicked off the boots and cheerfully walked barefoot back to the park to continue strategizing.