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Opinion - Let Washington Square Park breathe

 


My onion piece about the devolution of public park management to the police department was published by the NY Daily News.

Deploying the NYPD in Washington Square Park is the wrong use of police and the wrong use of parks. The city is responding with a bludgeon to a complex situation that requires multiple, effective solutions. The city must provide support services in the park to address some of our most intransigent social issues, namely homelessness, mental illness and drug addiction. And rather than clamping down, it must maintain equitable public access to public land. Otherwise, the cultural fabric that makes Washington Square Park the public space for celebrating difference and practicing tolerance will disappear and we will be left with another tightly controlled, manicured garden.

Read the entire essay here.

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