In September they began to gather, their encampment growing by the week. The police, confronted with a populist movement that put down roots in the financial district, were unsure of how to respond to Occupy Wall Street. At some marches, protesters were arrested for veering off the sidewalk into the street; at others, the police ordered protesters off the sidewalk.

Tents were banned early on, then tolerated, then banned again. The mayor said he was going to clear the encampment in October to clean up Zuccotti Park, then balked before finally going through with it a month later, when he sent the police in to clear the camp, in the middle of the night, with little warning.

Now, with Occupy Wall Street’s resurgence, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s response to the protest movement has not been ambivalent. Asked at a news conference on Monday if he had a strategy to prevent large-scale arrests of protesters, Mr. Bloomberg said: “You want to get arrested? We’ll accommodate you.”

While saying that the protests make for “great theater,” he dismissed them as ineffective. “If you have something, really, to say, that would be a great contribution, nobody can hear you when everybody’s yelling and screaming and pushing and shoving,” Mr. Bloomberg said.