Freedom Plaza stood empty yesterday. Photo by Andrew Wiseman

It was a strange sight to behold yesterday—an empty expanse of marble at Freedom Plaza. Ever since last October, the otherwise character-less downtown plaza had played host to one of the city’s two Occupy Wall Street-related encampments. Now, the Freedom Plaza occupiers are gone.

With an April 29 permit deadline fast approaching and no way to extend it—the National Park Service says that other organizations and events will be using the space—the Freedom Plaza occupiers recently started merging with their counterparts at McPherson Square.

According to The Hatchet, protesters hope that the new united Occupy D.C. will breathe life into a movement that has been struggling to find its footing since U.S. Park Police evicted campers from McPherson Square in February. (Few, if any protesters at Freedom Plaza actually slept there, keeping on the right side of anti-camping regulations.)

The Freedom Plaza occupiers were always a more sedate, older and more well-organized bunch than their fellow occupiers in McPherson Square. They also went the same way they came—quietly.