In today's playground news: no spaceships, prisons, or burning orbs are mentioned, but residents of Woodside, Queens want a certain group banned from their local play area. According to the Daily News, the Hart Playground—and more specifically its bathrooms—has been taken over by day laborers. One community Board 2 member told them, "People are afraid to use the park. [Men] come and they stay all day and they're urinating, drinking and washing clothes and taking baths in the fountain. It's not even an area where they should be without a child."
Some locals are placing part of the blame on local charities like Bread and Life, which has a mobile food kitchen set up outside of the playground. Executive Director Anthony Butler claims, "They're not in the playgrounds. They're only in the bathrooms." He also noted that the complaints were coming from "one or two people," and that he believes the accusations are racist. However, one local recently explained, “I’m Irish Catholic, I think it’s a wonderful thing to feed the poor, feed the hungry. I’m also a social worker. I know how it’s done. It is not done in a playground in a residential neighborhood.”
City Councilman Jimmy Van Bramer is currently working towards a compromise, and Butler said his group would move "if an appropriate site was given to us."
