As I told you last night, the NYPD trashed well over 5,000 books during their raid on Zuccotti Park. Jacket Copy has some more information about the astonishing literary mecca that was destroyed last night:

The Village Voice has asked city officials what happened to the library books, but has not yet recieved a response.

"I watched the stuff thrown into sanitation trucks and just crushed," Lopi LaRoe, a 47-year-old Brooklyn artist, told a reporter.

The library, which started out as a box of books and grew to a collection of more than 5,000, was originally out in the open air. Rocker, poet and National Book Award winner Patti Smith donated a tent to house the library and protect the books from the weather.

It had hosted readings by authors including Douglas Rushkoff, Jonathan Lethem (along with a quiet but curious Jennifer Egan) and Lynn Nottage; on Friday, a group of volunteers read Herman Melville's "Bartleby the Scrivener: A Story of Wall Street."

Sounds to me like the police actively destroyed the most exciting literary spot in New York City last night. Reportedly, they were smiling as they did it.