By ANDREW GROSSMAN

As an anti-corporate protest in Lower Manhattan heads into its fourth week, residents and businesses in the area are settling into an uneasy coexistence with their newest neighbors, the few hundred stalwarts camped out in Zuccotti Park.

Barricades erected to keep protesters from setting up on Wall Street have made it difficult for people who live in the area to get home. Near-constant drumming has grown a little wearying. And some office workers near the park would like to be able to play chess at lunchtime again.

"We just hope that in the near future it will go back to what it was and we'll have lots of foot traffic again," said Michael Balsamo, a general manager at the Milk Street Cafe on Wall Street. "It's hurt us a little. Traffic is restricted so people don't cross from the other side of the street."

The protesters, who call themselves the Occupy Wall Street movement, say they're trying to get along with workers and residents.

Spurred by news of a potential community board resolution condemning them, Justin Wedes, a 25-year-old from Brooklyn, put together a community relations committee and started talking to neighbors. The resolution was tabled.

Mr. Wedes said they agreed to stop drum circles at 10 p.m. instead of 11 p.m. Activists who don't know New York City are being told that lots of people live in and around Wall Street, and not all of them are wealthy bankers, Mr. Wedes said.

"We're planning to be here for quite a little while," he said. "And we want to be good neighbors while we're here."

They've had mixed success.

One woman called into Mayor Michael Bloomberg's radio show Friday and said her apartment overlooks the park. She complained about the drumming and shouting. "What about my rights to use that park?" she asked.

"We are trying to deal with this in a way that doesn't make the problem grow and protects everybody's rights," the mayor said. "There's no easy solutions here."

Brookfield Office Properties Inc., the landlord that owns Zuccotti Park, has repeatedly asked the NYPD to keep people from sleeping in it, according to a person familiar with the matter. But police have not acted on those requests.

A spokeswoman for the company said in a statement that the protesters are keeping other people from using the park, violating rules posted after the occupation started against setting out tarps and generally dirtying up the place. "Sanitary conditions," she said. "have reached unacceptable levels." She said Brookfield is working with the city to "restore the park to its intended purpose."

But during a question-and-answer session with reporters on Friday, Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said there wasn't much he could do.

On his radio show, Mr. Bloomberg, whose girlfriend, Diana Taylor, sits on Brookfield's board of directors, suggested that having the protesters in the park made it slightly easier to contain them.

"The question is will they disband or go someplace else?" he said. "And from a practical point of view, I think we want to let some of this—not play out, isn't quite the word—but let them express themselves."

Mr. Wedes said there's no way to discuss the issue with authorities because the protest movement is leaderless. He said he can't compel people in the park to do anything.

"Intentionally, we don't have a structure for negotiating with the police and negotiating with Brookfield," Mr. Wedes said. "That's led to a little bit of tension."

Write to Andrew Grossman at andrew.grossman@wsj.com