Last week, a few readers brought up quality of life issues such as garbage in the parks. We are guessing this mainly concerns the clean-up after summer weekend BBQs since the typical day-to-day seems to be pretty manageable for the most part. The lower photos are of St. Nicholas Park's 135th Street Plaza and there was already clean up at 8:00 AM in the morning. Benches that surround the historic parks seem to also be an area that has cups, bags or newspaper left behind. Our usual rounds are during mid-day and the lawn and areas such as the pond at Morningside Park have actually been pretty clean this past year (we noticed persistent garbage around its perimeter last summer).So what are readers' thoughts on the situation and which park specifically needs the most help? Marcus Garvey Park always looks especially pristine on visits (although top photo has one bag on the ground) but we are not really around the area in the late day. Morningside Park (2nd and 3rd from top) seems to have more garbage around benches on the northern perimeter, St. Nicholas Park always seems okay during the weekday and Jackie Robinson Park doesn't really have us raising any eyebrows. All photos by Ulysses
Riverside Park north of the sewage plant always looks like a bomb hit it on Monday mornings.
ReplyDeleteFor the most part, when I walk around 122nd & Lenox, across to FDB, people seem pretty good about putting out their garbage and dividing items into recyclables etc. As for Mount Morris Park, I think things are improving. Partly, that may be down to the excellent work the Mount Morris Park Community Improvement Association (MMPCIA) do.
ReplyDeleteJacob Schiff park is always messy around the basketball courts and wall ball areas. Broken glass and feces in the childrens playground. Very unmotivated park staff. A shame.
ReplyDeleteMost of the bigger parks seem to get cleaned up on a regular basis, however some smaller ones tend to get less attention. For example, Montefiore Park (??) at 137th and Broadway tends to be filthy and I rarely see it getting cleaned up.
ReplyDeleteChris-while the MMPCIA do ok, and have been stepping up more lately to organize local events, i really think credit must be given to the Marcus Garvey Park Alliance. They have monthly meetings with the parks department and have been doing so for years and years. They have fought for trees, plantings, clean up, policing, everything that's improved that park has at one time or another been on the agenda of of this organization. Let's give proper credit where it's due. MMPICA has been mostly dormant and self-concerned for at least a decade, only in the past year or two have they done anything of consequence.
ReplyDeleteMy how times have changes(and improved). Should have been here in the 80's up through the mid 90's when drug dealing and public sex were the main concerns of the parks. St. Nicholas park was a major gay public sex bazaar. How bad was it? It was organized with look outs (people monitoring citizens from interfering by walking down the paths where the sex festivities were taking place plain as day on knolls, next to trees, you name it). Lude Sex ruled that park. I once walked my dog in the area and saw an outdoor version of the orgy room of Plato's Retreat, then as I exited to walk down 135th St. noted a NYPD car, called them over and report the lude behavior taking place. The NYPD DID NOT CARE. It was common knowledge all this stuff was taking place...just part of crazy NYC of yesterday, cops too busy dealing with other things. If you enjoy the parks today, be thankful it's not like it used to be just a short 15+ years ago. The last thing you worried about when in a park in 1990 was litter.
ReplyDeleteHenry, fair enough! Being new(ish) to the area, not all that familiar with the Marcus Garvey Park Alliance, but from the looks of things they have done an incredible job.
ReplyDeleteMarcus Garvey Park has some nice plantings although they—and all of us—could do with a good rain.
ReplyDeleteI worry about the retaining walls on the east side. . . looks as though they are fighting a losing battle with some of the very old trees.
But I rarely see garbage.
The most garbage I’ve seen in my neighbourhood was after Law and Order Criminal Intent finished filming. That crew was a bunch of pigs.
Oh—and my personal hit list—people who use corner bins as their own personal bins and restaurants who put out used cooking oil near the corner bins.
The upper tier of Morningside Park can really get disgusting. Large garbage trucks can't get to this area so it has to be manually removed or done with a smaller vehicle. I've seen overflowing cans sit for days. The big trucks can get around the lower part so it's cleaner.
ReplyDeleteIn Marcus Garvey park, I'm pretty impressed with the number of park workers I see sweeping and replacing garbage bags. It's consistently cleaner, in my opinion, than the upper tier of Morningside Park.
Last week's discussion seemed to be more about the behavior of people who leave large quantities trash in the parks, especially after bbqing, and how to enforce park regulations against littering. I suggested that at least for the weekends that there might be a "pack in/pack out" policy as well as having a large dumpster located right by a park entrance on those days. It is probably unrealistic to think that the Parks Dept will hire more staff for the weekends. I also suggested that the Parks Dept try out a bbqing permit system for next summer.
ReplyDeleteMorningside Park looks terrible on the weekend mornings. It looks like a trash bomb went off after all of the bbqs. I also see the parks dept cleaning up tons and tons of garbage every morning.
ReplyDeleteI am pleased that somebody cleans up the trash but they don't get all of it. Moreover, I am shocked that people leave the park in such a state after their bbq.
1st: People really need to clean up after themselves. Bottom line.
2nd: There could be more trash cans.
3rd: There could be a community campaign to let people know that their trash makes the whole neighborhood look bad.
4th: Perhaps if nothing else works NYPD could give littering ticks for a couple of weekends and see if the situation improves.
I'll second Chris's comments on Morningside Park. Barbequeing is a major problem there. I've seen people drive in with private cars to unload giant barbeques, tents, generators and sound systems. Putting it mildly, a walk in the park on a summer weekend can be completely unpleasant. The amount of garbage strewn about and coal dumped in sewers I see on morning jogs is also pretty incredible.
ReplyDeleteMy suggestion is that if people want to bbq, they need to apply for a permit. These permits should then be checked by park rangers so they have someone to blame if the area they're using is a mess. The person could then be fined if there's a problem.
Given the tremendous amount of usage parks like Morningside, St. Nicholas, Montefiore, and the Jacob Schiff playground get over the summer, the lack of city resources applied to them is appalling.
ReplyDeleteI'd have to agree that the upper level of Morningside Park has consistently the poorest level of garbage removal in Harlem parks. Yes, Upper Riverside is worse on a Monday morning but Riverside has a crew dedicated just to that park and they get it cleaned up in short order. The same can NOT be said for Montefiore, Jacob Schiff, St. Nicholas and Morningside. They share a maintenance crew that works the entire rest of Community District 9 (CD9) (including the broadway malls) and is managed by someone who is also responsible for all of CD7 on the Upper West Side!
Jackie Rob and Marcus Garvey are in Community Districts 10 and 11 respectively. Perhaps their crews are not stretched so thin. The CD9 crew is stretched so thin that it can take a couple of days for even the lower and more accessible levels of St. Nich and Morningside to get cleaned after a weekend of heavy use. The upper levels rarely get attention at all because crew members would have to walk (heaven forbid!) up or down some stairs to collect the trash. As has been noted, trash can sit uncollected in the upper level of Morningside for weeks.
The Parks Dept. has enforcement officers (PEP officers) to deal with quality of life issues, eg. enforcing bbq areas, giving summons for littering, vehicles in the park, off leash dogs, etc. Frankly the Parks Dept. seems to put these officers where the money is. The new West Harlem Piers Park (2 acres) has 4 PEP officers dedicated to it - paid for by Columbia University. The High Line has 11 officers for 2.8 acres http://tinyurl.com/29cr6us On the other hand Morningside (over 30 acres) has 1 PEP Officer (rarely seen - but that’s another story). St. Nicholas, Montefiore and Jacob Schiff combined have 0!
We’ve all got to continue to make noise with our elected officials and the Parks Dept. that the allocation of public resources must take into account the tremendously high usage/acre in these parks. We will not settle for anything less.
I just went to the Parks Dept website "contact us" page. There is a "contact the commissioner form" that you can click on. It can't hurt to fill in the form and request that measures be taken to address the bbq related coal/trash problems in the parks. (And disposing of hot coals on the grass and/or near tress should be considered destruction of public property.)
ReplyDeleteHere's the link to contact the Parks Dept:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.nycgovparks.org/contact_us/html/contact.html
I strongly that everyone complains. Sanitation is the responsibility of the Park District Manager. His name is Marc Vaccarro. More folks have to speak up because I have never seen our parks so dirty. The lawns looks bad which tells me that there was no seeding this year. Mr. Vaccarro will say that it's kids or adults illegally barbequing. Or that they need more workers. All of it is a little true but they need to bring garbage bags around to the bigger parks and engage the public not just to clean up but what they are doing and how we can be more helpful. Pushing the public away sends a signal that you don't care what they do and that you don't care about them.
ReplyDeleteNot sure it's helpful to call out a single mid-level Parks employee on this. As for the lawns, we're having a very hot dry summer which has more than a little to do with their present condition.
ReplyDeleteHere's a bit of good news. It seems Parks has already taken action in response to recent comments and concerns raised by park neighbors and advocacy groups. Parks garbage crews were working overtime last night in Morningside and St. Nicholas. I saw them out in St. Nicholas at 8:45pm. It's these end of the day runs that could make a big difference and many of us have been calling for them for years. I hope Parks will commit to keeping them running for the rest of the summer!
Beside simply bringing up these complaints, parks advocacy groups can play an additional positive role. I know Friends of Morningside Park has reached out to independent contractors to supplement the Parks Dept. trash pickup. I hope to have more to report on that soon. They've also organized volunteer cleanups over the years.
My complaint is also with the upper tier of Morningside Park. People are obviously using the garbage cans but they are positively overflowing. I pass through the upper tier at 120th street every morning and I have honestly seen weeks go by without that can being emptied.
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