A group of Greenwich Village residents fed up with late-night loitering in Washington Square Park is pushing the parks department to install gates and locks at its entrances.
The downtown park closes at midnight. But to enforce the rule, a crew of cops creates a ramshackle assembly of metal barriers at the park’s nine entrances each night. Some neighbors say it’s not enough, and called for the installation of classic, permanent gates similar to those found at Abingdon Square Park and other historic squares in the city.
Members of Manhattan Community Board 2’s parks committee voted Wednesday night to ask the city to investigate installing permanent gates at the park.
The resolution is the latest push by neighbors to control the crowds at the park, which have grown more raucous since the COVID-19 pandemic. The green space has become a hub for social media influencers, weed parties and massive snowball fights that have occasionally ended with clashes with police. A federal investigation into alleged drug dealers responsible for overdose deaths was followed by a major increase in NYPD presence.
Washington Square Park has been a countercultural hub for generations. The community board's push to rein in its rumpus highlights the divisive politics around regulating the city’s precious public spaces.
Some neighbors say that the barricades set up by police are unsightly and fail to achieve their goal since they can be easily moved aside or shimmied through. Opponents of more barriers say that the park should be open 24/7 and that societal ills should be visible and confronted rather than displaced. Others say they simply want to put chains at the park’s entrance to let people know when it’s closed.
George Vellonakis, the landscape architect behind the park's sweeping mid-2000s renovation, overhauled the plaza and aligned the fountain with the arch, said the metal barriers are unattractive, and that the current setup where officers drag them into place each night doesn’t befit the iconic park.
“ There's nothing wrong with gates,” he said. “All our parks around the world are locked at night because landscapes are very sensitive. Anyone who has a garden knows that it has to be protected. So it's really protecting our investment.”
Vellonakis added that one of his plans for the park in 2005 included gates at the entrances, but they were cut from the design at the last minute. For the entrance by the park’s arch, he suggested an accordion-style fence that could fold away when not in use.
Eve Silber, a 39-year resident of the neighborhood, said that moves toward permanent gating felt like a betrayal of the park's identity.
“We don't have a right to decide who deserves to be in a park or not be in a park,” she said. “They are the public, and if the public is a reflection of the issues in our society, then those should be seen and visible for everybody to know we have problems to address in our world, and you can see them in our parks.”
Brian Meister, who lives across from the northeast corner of the park, said during Wednesday's meeting he was upset about homeless people who sleep in the park overnight.
"I've worked hard all of my life so that I can afford to live on the park, and it distresses me to see it ill-used," Meister said.
The community board meeting concluded with the group agreeing to draft a resolution asking the parks department to investigate some options. Parks department officials said they would work with the Washington Square Park Conservancy on a formal presentation for the community.
