Prospect Park Holiday Litter
It’s truly amazing how the South Slope Latino community is so ready to hijack the SW corner of the park every holiday weekend for their enormous bar-b-ques. Even more fascinating though is the amount of plastic crap they leave thrown about for the rest of us to find the next morning.
It’s truly amazing how the South Slope Latino community is so ready to hijack the SW corner of the park every holiday weekend for their enormous bar-b-ques. Even more fascinating though is the amount of plastic crap they leave thrown about for the rest of us to find the next morning.
sloper77, your determination to demonize one community is evident. Have you been to a public beach lately, walked through a street fair, ridden the subway, or driven a highway? No litter there?…or litter generated by all classes and culture? It’s a serious SOCIAL problem. Maybe you missed this article and video from the NY Times (or maybe your own community is illiterate?): http://nyti.ms/dkv6GZ
BTW, if you’re truly motivated by the budget crisis (I doubt it), try spending ANY day in the park picking up trash, rather than posting signs.
And in case you folks havn’t noticed – we have a state budget crisis. So instead of making everyone else pay more taxes for the Parks Service to clean up after you slobs, maybe you can pick up after yourselves?
Funny, I go to celebrate Brooklyn all the time, and I dont see litter there. Probably because the organizers make a point of asking everyone to clean up over the PA system. Ya see, thats the way it works: when a people make the conscious effort to clean up it happens.
Glad that you and your family pick up after themselves. Please spread the word to the rest of your community that we would appreciate it if they did the same.
Again the whole excuse of “that’s just the way it is so get used to it” is lame.
Nobody has to sit down and take it. If I have to post signs in Spanish so that they clearly understand I will.
Gotta call you out on your at best stereotypical comment. As a latino that grew up on the Caton Ave side of the park my whole life and using the magnificent Prospect Park with my family we never left litter behind. So to first debunk your implicit statement that the Latino culture is one of treating treasures like Park as a free for all trash bin is wrong.
Now to get to your explicit argument that you went to the South Slope during the 4th of July and the volume of trash compared with the people you saw generating the trash…I have been to Celebrate Brooklyn where the majority of the crowd is white and guess what i saw immediately at the end of the concert before the trash pickup occurred…tons of trash, damn those white people for dirtying our park.
Guess what the park is a public place and when there are events (high concentrations of people) it gets dirty. Should we all be more conscientious and clean it up, yes we ALL should. But since that is not the reality of how things are no matter what event or who is attending i want to use this post to say thank you for the parks sanitation people.
@UnprotectectedWrecks
I think its presumptuous to think that some of the offending folks might not be on this forum. I call them out because they need to know that they are ruining the park experience for everyone else. All it takes is one person to realize that the rest of their community is becoming an embaressment.
They’ll shape up.
Nice try folks.
You hide behind the easy blanket generalization that “the park is just always more littered after the holiday..thats just the way it is.”
So what, do we have holiday elves who put that trash there? No. Its always the same people. One of you says its all classes, the other says its only working class. I dont think it has anything to do with class, as much as culture, or more specificly the culture of going out with your entire family for a picnic in the park.
And not one of you has denied that if you only walk through the picnic areas and LOOK at who it is, that it isnt obvious. You are in SERIOUS denial if you dont see who it is trashing the park.
And agreed, after the Latino community, I hold park dept accountable as well. If they are willing to send entire crews of people to pick up after these guys then certianly they can afford to have a ranger handing out steep fines as they see people leaving there mess behind.
And no, its not the trash can’s fault. Sheesh, you people go so far out of your way to excuse bad behavior. Denial is not just a river in Egypt.
Yes, you are a racist. Own it.
It’s a fact of life. The park is filthy after a holiday weekend or an event like the Philharmonic. I’m not condoning it. I just accept it and keep my dogs out the morning after so I don’t have to run after them removing chicken bones from their mouths.
One thing I will say about the park patrol. They’re quick to ticket dog owners who don’t have their dogs on leash by 9:01, but I’ve never seen them go after the litterers.
If you want to talk litter and piss, sloper77, start first with the trash falling from your mouth. Who’s sweeping up after you, hmm?
Haven’t you hijacked the forum to spread your vitriol?
Trash in the park during ANY time of heavy use (concert, demonstration, barbeque, whatever) is a recurring LOGISTICAL problem—distinctly different than a cultural problem. Littering is a SOCIAL problem that cuts across class and culture. As quoted in Gothamist last year: “…press director Eugene Patron with Prospect Park Alliance says this kind of trash torrent isn’t unusual: ‘Any holiday weekend, it’s always a challenge to clean up, whether that’s Memorial Day, Labor Day, or July 4th.’ Patron explains that trash crews can’t move collection trucks safely through the park at night, ‘especially because so many people stay in the Park later at night in summer. Its not safe to try and move a truck through a crowded Park, especially as it gets dark…We can’t clean it all by 7 in the morning…when the dog-walkers are out taking photos of this. You have to give us a few hours to get it all.’ He adds that some park-goers haven’t helped matters by moving trash cans, turning them into barbecue grills, and then not returning them.”
Sloper, I’m not sure what you’re trying to do here. Let’s take it as given that the litter you’re referring to was generated 100% by people who are Latino and live in the South Slope. And let’s take it as given that it would be a good idea to speak on that issue publicly, because if we as citizens don’t hold each other accountable for use of public space, then public space will be abused.
What I question is the tone of your post, and your choice to post it here. You imply (but don’t state) that the Latinos you are referring to are working class. I would posit that class has more to do with this situation than race, for starters. If I’m right, then the people you’re trying to call out are probably not on this forum.
If your intention is to try to be constructive, then perhaps a community board meeting would be a more appropriate venue for what you have to say. Your choice to post a gripe on a forum that’s mostly middle-class, educated people (definitely not all, but I’m willing to go out on a limb and say mostly) is what smells racist-y to my nose. And if not racist, at least super un-cute.