OCTOBER 24, 2011

The posted rules in Zuccotti Park are clear: no "camping and/or the erection of tents or other structures." But the Occupy Wall Street encampment is beginning to resemble a tent city anyway.

When the protest began on Sept. 17, police intervened whenever anything resembling a tent was erected. It is against city law to camp in public.

But many retail-style camping tents—some purchased at nearby stores—have begun popping up in the Lower Manhattan park in recent days. Police and the privately owned park's landlord, Brookfield Office Properties, Inc., appear to be letting it happen as the weather turns cold.

The tents are part of protesters' efforts to stay warm. Organizers are also stockpiling sleeping bags and long underwear. People in the camp are talking about how long they'll be able to hold out. Nighttime temperatures are already starting to dip below 40 degrees Fahrenheit. Soon, they'll be below freezing.

"People are cold out here already. There was a frost last night," said Tamber Hepner, a 32-year-old from Wichita, Kan., who arrived Tuesday. She was helping stock donated coats, long underwear and sweaters in the park Sunday.

"As soon as they come in, they're going back out," Ms. Hepner said.

Police enforcement of the no-tent rule wasn't a problem during the balmy days of late September. Protesters slept in the open air or underneath tarps.

Now, some have made makeshift tents from plastic pipes, while others conceal their store-bought shelters with blue tarps.

Craig Raynolds, 41 years old, bought his tent three days ago at the nearby Modell's sporting goods store with some friends. He's sharing it with three other people. So far, that generates enough body heat to keep them warm.

"It's crazy hot in there," Mr. Raynolds said.

Police said they're not making protesters remove tents because the park's owner, Brookfield Office Properties Inc., hasn't asked them to.

"That is none of our concern. That is up to Brookfield," a law-enforcement official said. "They have chosen not to enforce it. And when I say enforce it, they haven't asked us."

A spokeswoman for Brookfield declined to comment.

So far, protesters appear to be purchasing the tents with their own money, and not from the roughly $500,000 Occupy Wall Street has received. Truckers have been donating wooden pallets, which Windsor Sidi, a 27-year-old from Virginia Beach, said he used to make a shelter for himself and four others. Last week, during the Jewish holiday of Sukkot, someone set up a sukkah—a hut used to remember the time Jews spent in the wilderness.

Disagreements over money, coupled with winter's approach and the growing notoriety of the protests, has sparked an effort to rein in the group's organizational structure.

On Sunday, a group gathered in the publicly accessible atrium of 60 Wall Street—where Deutsche Bank AG has its U.S. headquarters—to discuss changing its unwieldy General Assembly, where decisions must be unanimous.

The group considered creating a representative body that would be able to make some decisions—including, a flyer said, "holistic budgetary decisions"—without approval from everyone. A final vote on the new body could come before the General Assembly as early as Wednesday.

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