Locals Hire Security To Keep Riff-Raff Out Of Washington Square

MFer -- you're classification of the 3 types is really funny -- you made me laugh out loud.

Rwordplay -- you've hit the issues right on the head. And I thik we've got to keep public spaces truly public.

The cops should take care of the occasional drunks, crazies, dealers, if they annoy others. These "civic minded" "neighbors" are neither.

And how exactly does one create a private security force to patrol a public space? What authority can it possibly have?

The hasids do it all the time in Williamsburg.

The drug dealers dont harrass and I have lived in this immediate area for 15 years. On the other hand the crack addicts can sometimes be in your face when you are just trying to eat your lunch.

Over all, I do not think the park needed this "cleansing."

On the one hand you've got the people who want the park to be a nice place where you don't get harassed by dealers. On the other hand you've got the people who think it will be cleaned up SO MUCH that it will be homogenized and Disney-fied.

Now which one seems more realistic?

Do I get to select door number 2 out of the three doors you've suggested?

The whole notion of the public sphere is being tested here in Washington Square Park as well as in other private-public endeavors including The High Line, Madison Square Park and Times Square. My problem with the developers,designers and advocates of the new New York is their not very subtle effort to transform external "commons," notable for their elements of spontaneity, chaos and occasionally violence, into interior spaces, distinguished by limited and controlled access and total surveillance. To whom does Washington Square belong? The City, the people of New York, tourist, the inhabitants of surroundings streets, NYU? Washington Square was never intended to serve a small elite a la Gramercy Park. Those who think they can effect this transformation are delusional.

What that park really needs is a really good beer tent, where anyone over 18 can buy and consume beer to their hearts desire. The only rule being no taking the beer outside the park. Also a lot of loud music will help liven the place up. How about heating the water in the fountain? The amount of heat given off by the urine generously supplied by the waders will unfortunately not be enough to heat the fountain on those cool September evenings when freshman week is in full swing.

I bought some of my first bags of green there while sipping 40's skipping out on high-school in the late 80's. I'll never forget the guy - Marvelous - cuz "I look just like Marvelous Marvin Hagler" - and he did!! ahahahahah

Why not just white wash NYC and call it Singapore? Seems to be the new MO.

what do you think of this precedent- what if i think there's too much crime in my neighborhood, but can't afford to privately contract off-duty cops? carry this to a logical extreme and it's pretty scary.

letting kids go to summer camp with band aids in their packs leads to staff infections, because they just use the band aids to cover up wounds instead of going to the nurse to really deal with the problem. stupid rich kids.

There are 3 types of riff-raffs in WSP: the bums, mostly white; the dealers, mostly blacks; and the pigeon feeder, completely insane. To this list we can add 2 types of undesireables: the NYU undergrad douchebags, mostly scummy; and the small-dog run dog owners, who are feared most of all. For they have political power in their incessant bitching, sickening arf-arf of love, and devotion to their rat-dogs.

nothing i cant stand more than snooty pretentious yuppies with their mutt rat dogs who look down on you because you dont want to neuter your dog

WSP has kept going down hill since they stopped using it as a potter's field back in the early nineteenth century.

I'm glad to see the "hanging tree" is still there, albeit with out the appropriate branch. Perhaps with the help of FDNY's ladder 9 they can stretch another rope higher up and let it dangle in the faces of all the miscreants that walk under it.

Snoopy,

I'm surprised that the doctors give you access to the computers.

I don't believe in doctors, they cut me off from my main supply of drugs about four years ago, so I can't use the VA's computers anymore.

Fortunately I have a friend at City Hall and she just slipped me one of those new iphoneG3S's type electronic devices with free AT&T service paid by the city.

She told me to be very discreet in using it because it can be traced back to her office where she is working at City Hall room 342. I told her I would.

The had to do this after I sold them all those "keys to Washington Square".

can we keep little kids out of the fountain? I have nothing against them but if you ever see kids in bathing suits in the fountain then if you look around you'll see tons of perverted pedophiles staring at them creepily. It gives me the heebie jeebies.

Washington Square just got awkward.

Eleanor Roosevelt, who lived at 29 Washington Square West, would have been deeply ashamed of her neighbor's behavior. These are the same uptight patrician wanna-be's (Eleanor, being a true patrician, was eminently tolerant) who tried to have the dog run removed from WSP because of the noise.

I read that as dog track for some reason and thought, well, yeah, who wouldn't want a dog track removed from Washington Square Park? But the dog run? Too noisy? That's absurd

come on guys, a little apartheid never hurt anyone did it?

"what makes me feel uncomfortable is a private group of citizens deciding who does and does not have a right to use public space based on their own private ideas of civility."

Well said.

Henry James must be proud

The NYPD should do more to keep the drug pushers out.

We all should do more to keep the mentally ill, indigent freaks off the streets.

Kicking them out of WSP just means there'll be more of them on Sixth Avenue. We have a major problem with homeless, unstable, potentially violent people in the city and we never do anything to help them.

Well said, you can move the mentally ill all over the boroughs and it's not going to change the nature of the problem, more funding for treatment options would help protect against future "random guy stabbed in the street" posts on Gothamist

i hope anyone who wants this rots in filth and dies.

Rent-a-cops are MUCH worse than the real thing. This community group that hired them are going to get bitten in the ass when the hired guns take things a bit too far.

"Why is that? Because any security is inherently racist?"

I don't know why it is but it's certainly been my experience that when security is paid for by rich people they work against the poor, and in our city, the dark-skinned.

People have a right to sit around being different, looking like a "low life" or whatever they want as long as they are not breaking the law.

If someone suspects there are drug dealers in the park, call the cops.

And yes, there is reason to except this will be a bad thing. It's about poorer and/or dark-skinned people being made to feel less comfortable in the park.

Why is that? Because any security is inherently racist? There's already every type of person in that park, so if you're not a bum sleeping on a bench, or selling drugs what's making you feel uncomfortable?

what makes me feel uncomfortable is a private group of citizens deciding who does and does not have a right to use public space based on their own private ideas of civility

AGREED!

...shadowy coalition of nearby co-op boards and NYU

I couldn't think of a more distasteful, opinionated, bourgeois cabal. Next, they'll be issuing "noise ordinance" summonses and banning the food cart vendors for offering "unhealthful" foodstuffs.

Welcome to Washington Stepford Park.

Is there any reason to think this will really be a bad thing yet? Actual security in the Park at night wouldn't be a bad thing in my book - as long as "riff raff" doesn't include people playing music at 11pm, goofing off in the fountain, or hustling NYU scum at chess.

Without more details this just sounds like another shrill reaction from people looking for a reason to call village residents racist.

If there's any reaction that's sounding "shrill," it's the one emanating from the residents who believe a public park is an extension of their overly-landscaped backyard.

what's wrong with the neighborhood watch group?

I thought there were signs of them around the park.

let the cops do the job we don't need more security around the park.

how bout security for all the underaged drinker in the dorms and bars. let's start on that first.

These are cops -- off-duty cops are who they'll be hiring. I've seen banks hire off-duty cops who then stand at the bank all day. Same shit. All they're doing is paying for additional cops in the park.

ahhh, so they're hiring off-duty cops, is there a perk these guys don't get?

a friend work's off duty as a store security guard, when asked if he sees a shoplifter what he'll do, he said "nothing". it's not worth it to get involved.

unless you're a gung ho cop drunk with power. most just want to do their 20 and out.

Under what legal authority would they remove the undesirables from a public space?

I was wondering the same thing. Legally, I think the park's no different from a subway car or any other public space. The authorities can ticket and arrest for unlawful actions, but can't define "riff-raffiness" and remove a person based on that.

This is so wrong.

if they want to spend money to remove garbage or plant tree or something, more power to them.

But to remove people? It's a public space for whoever wants to be there.

Including drug dealers?

Yes, including alleged drug dealers!

After all, the dealers are there to fill the demand for weed from NYU's 40,000 undergrads!

A private group can't have this kind of power...removal (arrest) has to be done by the police.

yes, you want someone removed from the park for dealing drugs, have them arrested. otherwise they have just as much right to be there as anyone else.

So you approve of drug dealers?

I do - marijuana should be legal!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man

Uh oh-you know you are in trouble when the wikipedia sources are cited...

I see what you did there. Clever.

yes, you non native nasally voiced douchebag, including who you may or may not know are drug dealers.

Yes, you got me there, I'm a non-native. Congrats~~

They give themselves away as drug dealers when they say, "Yo, you wanna buy some weed?"

Hopefully they've hired members of the Basij.

What's the definition of "civilized" and does that not include drum circles?

It probably doesn't include people like my brother "JP Morgan" - he's one of the chess players in the park, and has been for the past two decades.

I'm sure he's considered to be "riff raff" - as are all of the low income African Americans who hang out in the park.

Basically, this is yuppie Ethnic Cleansing at work!

Since its basically surrounded by NYU, it is virtually impossible to keep the Riff Raff out.

Fuckin Snobs

hahahaha that was great