An escalating conflict at one of New York City’s most iconic public spaces is testing the limits of using police as the chief problem solvers for quality of life and public safety concerns. 

Hundreds of people crammed into a community meeting on Wednesday called by the New York City Police Department to address a conflict over the use of Washington Square Park in Manhattan’s Greenwich Village. The park is grappling with a surge of park-goers without housing, complaints of drug use and noise, and outbursts of crime. At the same time, during the pandemic, a party atmosphere has proliferated and young people  have gathered at night in the park for music, dancing and drinking. 

The confluence of events has left some residents of the neighborhood around the park and regular park-goers at odds over a way forward for the space, which has historically served as a place of both performance and protest. And it’s highlighted what many say are insufficient public spaces for congregating. 

So far, Mayor Bill de Blasio, the NYPD and the city Department of Parks and Recreation have attempted to address rising quality-of-life complaints over noise and drug use in public spaces with police officers and a curfew, which has only served to escalate tensions. 

The issue came to a head on June 5 when officers from the NYPD’s Strategic Response Group, which was originally formed to handle large-scale disruptions and counterterrorism, clashed with park-goers. They arrested nearly two dozen people for offenses like failure to comply with the curfew sign and disorderly conduct. Video emerged of officers shoving and subduing individuals in the park during a temporary 10 p.m. weekend curfew. 

Geoffrey Croft, who runs the watchdog group NYC Park Advocates, said the city has allowed concerns to fester in parks, turning a blind eye to drug and alcohol use and other disruptive activity. Trying to address the concerns in one fell swoop, simply by enforcing the closure of parks with police officers, is what led to a boiling point in early June, he said. 

“The proper way of dealing with this is not waiting until it explodes, which the city has not done. They’ve allowed it to go on,” Croft said. The city will need to move forward with both education and enforcement, he added. “It’s going to require some resources to address this and not just heavy-handedness.” 

It isn’t just Washington Square Park. Police have quietly closed and cleared other parks across the city with little public notice.

At Union Square Park, just a few blocks away, a similar early closure was instituted by police and the Parks Department. And Crotona Park in the Bronx was swept and closed by officers on June 5, though the department says that was a local decision and not part of a coordinated closure effort. There were no arrests stemming from the closure of Union Square or Crotona parks, according to police. The department would not comment on whether there have been other police closures of parks across the city.

The curfews have been imposed intermittently with little public or advanced warning. It's unclear whether there will be early closure at Washington Square Park this weekend (the usual closing time is midnight). “The decision to move the closing time will be reviewed on ongoing basis,” a police spokesperson said in a statement.

At the Washington Square Park meeting Wednesday, dozens of people were not allowed in because of capacity limits. Residents and park-goers continued to talk past each other. Those who were not able to make it inside set up shop in the street and held an impromptu meeting with a microphone and speaker. 

“There needs to be a compromise in terms of what is allowed in the park,” said Carlos Nunes, 27, who has been going to the park multiple times a week for five years. He acknowledged there has been change in the park — more people are playing music, there are more fights and the park has become much more diverse. But with the pandemic, there aren’t many places for young people to congregate, and bringing in the NYPD “hasn’t helped at all,” he said. 

“Nobody’s talking to each other,” said Tequila Minsky, who lives near the park. “The park is completely out of control. There’s competing musicians, Hare Krishnas — it’s a real example of the scarcity of space in New York City.” She added that what was missing in the meeting was a conversation between residents and park-goers.  

This marks the latest conflict over policing in the nation’s largest city in the year since the murder of George Floyd. The approach so far has neither eased tensions, nor led to reduced activity in the park, but it has resulted in new complaints of excessive force by the NYPD while also serving as the latest example of the reliance on police.

New York has yet to fully bounce back from the pandemic. Unemployment rates remain well above their pre-pandemic levels. Shooting incidents and hate crimes are up significantly over last year and the number of homeless single adults is 109% higher than it was a decade ago. In addition, the area that includes the park has among the highest rates of mental health related-emergency calls in the city. The onset of summer means hundreds of thousands of kids are out of school, adding to the pressure. 

The issue of over-policing has become a chief topic in the mayoral race to replace de Blasio, who is term limited, ahead of the primary elections next week.

During a press conference this week, de Blasio said the approach to the parks is a work in progress.

“I really think that what the Parks Department and NYPD are trying to do is reset the balance properly. Obviously, do it in a way that involves communication and not conflict,” de Blasio said. “They're experimenting with different approaches to get it right.”

Erika Sumner, a member of the Washington Square Association, has been disheartened by both the mayor’s comments and the city’s approach to the problem, suggesting that a path forward will have to include both enforcement and education. She has lived near the park for more than four decades, and says things “started to go off the rails” in April. Those who have been visiting the park every night say they plan to continue. 

“It’s too complex of a problem to say it’s going to dissipate naturally,” Sumner said. “You cannot talk about addressing this issue without social services. Everybody is freaking out, they just got out of the pandemic.” 

— With assistance by Henry Goldman, and Peyton Forte