Broken Windows, Broken Parks (NY Times)

[dc_denizen]

Broken Windows, Broken Parks

Interesting take from the Times on a somewhat delicate subject politically: the noise and refuse left over by party-goers in NYC's parks.

The contrast with central London's mostly immaculate parks is pretty unflattering. Why do we Americans put up with this crap? Is this kind of behavior common to other cities or just NYC? Don't remember DC ever getting this messy after a barbecue weekend.

Over the past month, I have spent Monday mornings visiting different parks around the city — in addition to upper Riverside, I went to Brooklyn Bridge Park, Prospect Park and Flushing Meadows-Corona Park — to determine what they look like in the aftermath of weekend revelry. Riverside Park in Harlem looks as if every global chapter of Sigma Chi had convened the previous evening, and then sometime after midnight, when its members were sloshed enough, they had invited all of Theta Phi.

Even at 8:30 in the morning, after maintenance workers for the parks department had been cleaning for more than four hours, debris blanketed the ground for blocks, forming heaps: discarded grill tops, coals, partly eaten hot dogs, food tins, paper, cans, bottles, a smashed layer cake. One worker told me that since last summer she had collected 9,000 bottle caps from cleaning this section of the park, and that more disturbingly she had found pools of blood, which she attributed to the eruption of fights after hours of drinking. After Memorial Day weekend, returning the park to some semblance of normalcy took until Wednesday.

Last weekend, volunteers had been corralled to spruce up Flushing Meadows-Corona Park. On Monday morning, at the lakeside near the Van Wyck Expressway, where grills are stationed, aluminum-foil tins of lettuce and pork were strewed on the lawn, along with bottles, cartons, a discarded table and at least one used diaper. The tactics of the parks department did not seem to be working, and there were no maintenance people in sight.

As with so many kinds of conversations in New York, discussions of parks inevitably lead to complicated questions about race and class. Brooklyn Bridge and Prospect Parks, with their independent funding streams and peripheries of high-priced real estate, are largely spotless on a Monday morning.

The woman who went door to door gathering signatures for the Riverside Park petition is a professor at the Manhattan School of Music, Heasook Rhee, who has lived on Riverside Drive for 13 years. She talks about children in the building whose homework patterns are disturbed by the weekend commotion. When she and others have protested the lack of enforcement in the park, they have been told by longtime residents that they essentially misunderstand “the culture.” At one point during some weekend rowdiness, said another distressed resident, Gillian Rogers, she approached a police officer who appeared to be doing nothing to contain the madness. “He said, ‘If I did anything there’d be a riot,’ ” Ms. Rogers recounted.

[Perklol]

delete

[Double L]

What's the point of having a park if you're never going to use it?

[ardecila]

Why should we deny poor and immigrant communities the right to gather peacefully just because they don't have spacious homes and can't afford to rent out restaurants? Parks are great for this type of picnicking activity and it isn't just limited to those communities.

The bigger problem honestly is maintenance or lack thereof... parks managers need to provide copious trash cans and have daily or twice-daily trash collections at busy times. If you provide people with places to dump trash, they will use them.

We also need better enforcement of laws... Most cities ban glass bottles in public places, if not alcohol altogether. Seems like some of these problems just stem from public drunkenness.

If I were the OP, I'd be more concerned about the damage left behind by largely white-attended music festivals like Lollapalooza and Governor's Ball.

[untitledreality]

Originally Posted by dc_denizen

Why do we Americans put up with this crap? Is this kind of behavior common to other cities or just NYC?

Its cultural. Americans always like to place the responsibility on someone else. Even while visiting seemingly pristine Hawaiian beaches a few weeks ago, I found myself collecting and carrying back to my car a backpack full of garbage. There is a complete disconnect people have about how their actions effect the world around them.

Originally Posted by ardecila

The bigger problem honestly is maintenance or lack thereof... parks managers need to provide copious trash cans and have daily or twice-daily trash collections at busy times. If you provide people with places to dump trash, they will use them.

Go visit Tokyo and tell me how many public trash cans you see and how much litter is present. You can put out all the garbage cans in the world, when a culture doesn't care, they will continue doing what they always do..

[Double L]

I'm sure compared to Japan, the issue is cultural. Still doesn't take away the fact that we should have better maintenance and more trash cans. We can't change culture with legislation. You have to look at how to solve the problem. No more parks? Bad idea. Expecting Americans to act Japanese? Not gonna work. Signs telling people not to litter, trash cans for people to use and handymen to clean up the park? A bit more of a reasonable solution.

[untitledreality]

Originally Posted by Double L

I'm sure compared to Japan, the issue is cultural. Still doesn't take away the fact that we should have better maintenance and more trash cans. We can't change culture with legislation. You have to look at how to solve the problem. No more parks? Bad idea. Expecting Americans to act Japanese? Not gonna work. Signs telling people not to litter, trash cans for people to use and handymen to clean up the park? A bit more of a reasonable solution.

How many trash cans do we need? One every 100 feet? 50 feet? What happens when the parks are still left with litter? 30 feet? How much time and money will it cost to maintain those garbage cans and employ those who empty them?

How about taking responsibility for ones actions and imparting those values upon future generations? Leave No Trace is a pretty easy concept to grasp.

[tech12]

It's not just an NYC problem. People in SF were making a big deal recently about all the drunk hipsters leaving their trash in Dolores Park, and about stoners trashing Golden Gate park on 420, for example.

Originally Posted by Eveningsong

Indeed I have seen some people from tenement housing use parks in the wrong way. Having parties for their 10-year old son or celebrating her husbands 45th birthday or a group of thugs doing something.

Come to think of it, who likes hosting parties in parks? It's hard to tell who was invited and the passer-by. I've been to a few many years ago but never felt that everyone was connected.

Alo I'm thinking that renting a hall/somewhere for events would be better for everyone. I could understand picnics or a small group of friends/family but parties? No.

Who cares what people do in the park, as long they pick their trash up and don't vandalize shit or murder people.

Oh no, a birthday party. In...the park! Unacceptable!

[Double L]

Originally Posted by untitledreality

How many trash cans do we need? One every 100 feet? 50 feet? What happens when the parks are still left with litter? 30 feet? How much time and money will it cost to maintain those garbage cans and employ those who empty them?

How about taking responsibility for ones actions and imparting those values upon future generations? Leave No Trace is a pretty easy concept to grasp.

We can solve that by hiring people to clean it up. Sorry, but you can't force everybody to not litter.

[untitledreality]

Originally Posted by Double L

We can solve that by hiring people to clean it up. Sorry, but you can't force everybody to not litter.

Forcing? How hard is it to not pull something out of your pocket and drop it on the ground? Or pack out what you packed in? But thank you for continuing to reply, you are doing a great job of proving my point.

[Perklol]

Originally Posted by tech12

Who cares what people do in the park, as long they pick their trash up and don't vandalize shit or murder people.

Oh no, a birthday party. In...the park! Unacceptable!

It's not allowed in certain zones and in some cases not allowed in that park.

Also, are you one of those people that host parties in parks? Just curious.
I hope I didn't offend you.

[Double L]

Originally Posted by untitledreality

Forcing? How hard is it to not pull something out of your pocket and drop it on the ground? Or pack out what you packed in? But thank you for continuing to reply, you are doing a great job of proving my point.

If you're proving any point it's that you as an individual have two choices. Start a one man crusade to stop everybody in America from littering, or move to Japan.

[AviationGuy]

You wanna see garbage, visit Austin during South by Southwest or the Austin City Limits Festival. Unbelievable. Or any weekend on 6th Street. It's largely people from out of state coming for the festivals, but the locals (mostly the college crowd) don't really care about the city either. It only gets worse every year, and costs the rest of us a ton in taxes to clean up the mess of others.

[ardecila]

I don't know where you're from, but in Chicago it is a middle-class tradition to throw barbecues, reunions, picnics, company gatherings, etc in the parks and forest preserves. It works well for a potluck style setup to keep costs down. There's always plenty of parking, plenty of space to play games, etc. This type of thing reaches across all races.

If we take racial and classist hostility out of this, then really we're just talking about a sanitation problem which can be solved like any other, with changes to government services and public outreach. There is no moral failure here.

[llamaorama]

I don't know where you're from, but in Chicago it is a middle-class tradition to throw barbecues, reunions, picnics, company gatherings, etc in the parks and forest preserves. It works well for a potluck style setup to keep costs down. There's always plenty of parking, plenty of space to play games, etc. This type of thing reaches across all races.

If we take racial and classist hostility out of this, then really we're just talking about a sanitation problem which can be solved like any other, with changes to government services and public outreach. There is no moral failure here.

It's a normal thing in every suburb ever, too. Those metal canopies with picnic tables and the bbq pits at parks exist for a reason. Did people think they were for decoration?

Sometimes it makes sense to make them reservation-only. Generates revenue for the community, and perhaps you could build in accountability by requiring a refundable cleaning deposit?

[tech12]

Originally Posted by Eveningsong

It's not allowed in certain zones and in some cases not allowed in that park.

Also, are you one of those people that host parties in parks? Just curious.
I hope I didn't offend you.

No, I've never hosted a party in a park. But I've been to plenty of them and barbecues and what not. A lot of them were birthday parties for friends when I was kid. I'm not offended, I just find it weird that you think it's weird that people sometimes have parties/large get togethers in parks....like them minding their own business and having fun in a public place is automatically offensive or inconvenient to those who aren't involved. Plus, a lot of people literally have no space for something like that in their home, or enough money to rent a space out like you suggested, and have no choice but to do it in public. Not to mention it's nice to be outside.

[599GTO]

Low-rent heathens. I truly hate people who litter. Leaving it on the floor near a full garabge bin is one thing, but the people who just throw things around drive me mad. Last week, I saw some poor loser throw his gross fast-food bag out of his shitbox and onto the middle of a West Village street and I picked it up and threw it right back into his car. Take that shit back to the Bronx.

Some people will never learn.

[untitledreality]

Originally Posted by Double L

If you're proving any point it's that you as an individual have two choices. Start a one man crusade to stop everybody in America from littering, or move to Japan.

I didn't think someone could be so dense. Okay, you win, local governments are flush with cash anyhow, lets hire more trash crews, line up more city pensions, buy more trash bins, buy more trucks, further burden municipal vehicle maintenance shops... and then we can all just leave our garbage anywhere, anytime, because someone else will come around to pick it up. Solid idea.

[Perklol]

Originally Posted by tech12

No, I've never hosted a party in a park. But I've been to plenty of them and barbecues and what not. A lot of them were birthday parties for friends when I was kid. I'm not offended, I just find it weird that you think it's weird that people sometimes have parties/large get togethers in parks....like them minding their own business and having fun in a public place is automatically offensive or inconvenient to those who aren't involved. Plus, a lot of people literally have no space for something like that in their home, or enough money to rent a space out like you suggested, and have no choice but to do it in public. Not to mention it's nice to be outside.

I don't think its weird.

Regarding "fun".

Honestly, if you were to ask anyone that attended said party if they had "fun", I'm absolutely sure you would get a different response. Try it out before putting words into someone elses' mouth.

Anyway, what's so fun about a get together when you can't tell whos a stranger or an acquaintance. Pretty sad. Oh and you better stack on raid all over yourself to get rid of the bugs. NOT fun imo.

[Double L]

Originally Posted by untitledreality

I didn't think someone could be so dense. Okay, you win, local governments are flush with cash anyhow, lets hire more trash crews, line up more city pensions, buy more trash bins, buy more trucks, further burden municipal vehicle maintenance shops... and then we can all just leave our garbage anywhere, anytime, because someone else will come around to pick it up. Solid idea.

It's the American way. People can't be forced to do something, it is best to allow services so that they will do it, you can't wave a magic wand. You must deal with it.