Locked Park Spurs Call for Permanent Sunset Park Dog Park
Dog owners say they’ve been asking for a dog-friendly green space for years.
Sunset Parkers are demanding the neighborhood get its own dog run after Parks Department employees padlocked one of the area’s few seemingly pet-friendly spaces. Photo via Henry Stewart
By Jada Camille, Brooklyn Paper
Locals’ outcry for a dog park is growing louder after a former seemingly pup-friendly part of Sunset Park was padlocked last week, keeping pet-owners and their dogs out.
Dog owners have had it “ruff” when it comes to getting a dog run in the area. They say they’ve been asking for a dog-friendly green space for years. Though their wishes haven’t been granted, they’d been pacified with a substitute semi-fenced-in area in Sunset Park near 41st Street and 6th Avenue.
But on March 26, the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation put chains and a padlock on it, leaving them with no space to let their four-legged friends run free.
Sunset Park allows for off-leash hours in dedicated park sections, NYC Parks press officer Chris Clark told Brooklyn Paper, but once the agency found out that pets were being allowed to roam free in the fenced-off garden area, Parks put padlocks on the fence to protect the garden.
“We encourage all New Yorkers to take advantage of our parks for fun, play, and relaxation – and that includes our four-legged friends,” Clark told Brooklyn Paper. “At Sunset Park, dog owners and their canine companions can head to the lawn at the center of the park for off-leash hours.”
The lockout has recharged calls for a dog run in the community, or at the least a formal off-leash area in the park — something southern Brooklynites have been formally petitioning for as far back as 2021. Later that year, community leaders joined pet owners at rallies in support of their demand.
For 10+ years the Sunset park community has been fighting for a dog park.
We’re tired of the red tape excuse, and were tired of no one listening. It’s time for #PeoplePower (& #PuppyPower )
Proud to join my neighbors yesterday. Let’s organize and get this dog park!! pic.twitter.com/OqUs2SqSG5
— Jacqui Painter 📢 (@JacquiPainter) June 17, 2021
Council Member Alexa Avilés, who currently represents District 38, said her office will continue to work with residents and the Parks Department toward a solution satisfying all parties — something she stressed will require a big enough area with running water, drainage, and someone to run and fund it.
“For many years, a number of residents have been calling for a dog run in Sunset Park, a process that’s under the Parks Departments’ purview,” Avilés told Brooklyn Paper. “Some Sunset Parkers have been pushing for a park in an area on a steep incline which presents several costly and feasibility challenges for the department.”
Julio Peña III, chairperson for Community Board 7, which represents Sunset Park, said he is in support of a dog run at the park. His board has, in the past, considered options near 41st Street and 6th Avenue, and an open space on the left-hand side of the Sunset Park recreational center, near 44th Street.
But, for Sunset Park to get a dog run, it appears there are still quite a few human hoops to jump through.
“Our board had a few meetings regarding a dog park a few years ago,” Peña said. “We are supportive of the idea but have been told by [NYC] Parks that unless our council member, borough president, or other electeds allocate funds, it would not be possible.”
To date, more than 1,200 people have signed a Change.org petition calling for a designated Sunset Park dog run.
Editor’s note: A version of this story originally ran in Brooklyn Paper. Click here to see the original story.
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Sunset Park dog owner here. Been living in the neighborhood 15 years.
This article is kind of odd, and my guess is that it was written by someone who has never actually visited the park and looked around the areas discussed. I could be mistaken.
Author says, “… they’d been pacified with a substitute semi-fenced-in area in Sunset Park near 41st Street and 6th Avenue.” This is a very strange way of explaining the situation.
This area has gone through phases of being locked and unlocked over the years with no clear rhyme or reason. But anyone familiar with it knows that the Parks dept. doesn’t want people — or dogs for that matter — in the area. The same goes for the 44th-street side of the park. Both have very steep inclines to the street with no protective fencing at the bottom. This must be a huge liability/injury risk for the city and so instead of making it safe they just try to discourage people from entering. People enter anyway, locked or unlocked.
Since there is a huge off-leash area already available, my guess is that the people who bring their dogs in there do it because either (a) they fear their dog will run away and it’s a semi-contained space; (b) their dog is aggressive and can’t be around other dogs; or (c) their dog might get hurt by other dogs.
Anyway, people have ALWAYS gone in there, allowed or not. Same goes for the 44th street side. The fences are only waist high and so anyone can simply hop them or force the gate open just enough to squeeze through. And they do.
One concern I have is that the area tends to suffer damage from the dogs. The grass has been stripped to bare soil/dirt in parts, particularly near the entrance gate, and there are large holes where the dogs have been given free reign by their owners to dig.
Again, I’m a dog owner myself and use the park’s off-leash privileges every day multiple times. So to a certain degree, I get it. But if you’re going to go in there, at least treat the area with respect.
The main area where dog owners congregate during off-leash ours, the broad sloping field just west of the soccer and basketball courts in the middle of the park, has also suffered a lot of damage to the turf. Huge swaths of it are now just pockmarked raw dirt. The rest is weed cover, not grass. Very little grass remains. It’s also dotted with large and dangerous holes the dogs have dug (imagine what happens when a kid running full steam hits one of those).
In the past the issue of a dog run has come up, but it’s always been framed as a “you can either have a dog run or off-leash hours, not both” from my memory, and so the various interested parties can never come to a resolution.
This is a good example of why it’s so hard to do, build, improve any public spaces in the city. It’s almost impossible to get the factions to agree on anything. And so nothing happens and we’re left with the same busted status quo. Look at the BQE cantilever project.
This same dynamic plays out across the country where rules about collective decision-making get weaponized to prevent anything from ever getting actually built.
Very interesting. Thank you for your comment.