Council Member Chi Ossé, New Yorkers for Parks (NY4P) and local park advocates rallied Monday at Herbert Von King Park in Bedford-Stuyvesant, calling on Mayor Eric Adams to restore funding for the city’s Parks Department and 800 parks-related jobs.
Park advocates say underfunding and understaffing have led to unsafe parks and playgrounds, dirtier bathrooms, un-mowed lawns, and untrimmed trees — significantly affecting quality of life for New Yorkers.
Adam Ganser, executive director of NY4P, told Brooklyn Paper that 800 essential park jobs have been lost over the past three years due to pay cuts and hiring freezes. Those losses, he said, have led to a “visible deterioration” of New Yorkers’ most cherished outdoor gathering spaces.
According to Parks Department Vital Parks data — which evaluates parks based on cleanliness, safety, resiliency, structural elements like play equipment, landscape features such as lawns and trees, and the condition of amenities — 62% of city parks score a 95 out of 100. In Brooklyn, however, only 25% of parks reach that benchmark.
“These are really quality of life issues,” Ganser said. “And when you have your park spaces not feeling safe and not feeling clean and comfortable, people don’t want to be there, and that’s a real problem in New York, where everybody is really relying on these spaces.”
The Parks Department manages 1,700 city parks, more than 1,000 playgrounds, 161 miles of waterfront and beaches, 50 recreation centers, 65 pools and over 2 million trees. Yet the department has been chronically underfunded, with its budget hovering around 0.6% of the city’s total for the past 40 years.
Ganser said it’s unfortunate that the mayor has not fulfilled his 2021 campaign promise to allocate 1% of the city budget to city parks.
“You know we were coming out of COVID. It was clear and still is so clear, how important parks are in a dense urban environment like New York City. So coming in and committing to that 1% was a watershed moment for parks,” Ganser said. “This will potentially be the last budget that this mayor is negotiating, and it’s a real opportunity [for him] to step up and move towards fulfilling that commitment to our city’s parks.”
Council Member Ossé called New York City parks the “lifeblood” of the city.
“The fact that this mayor, consistently over the past four years, has denigrated and defunded our parks is dead wrong,” Ossé said. “We have the political power to make sure that we can make our parks well-funded like they should be. I’m here to advocate for 1% for parks.”
Morgan Monaco, president of the Prospect Park Alliance, said investing in New York City parks is crucial in the face of climate change.
“Climate change is happening right now in our city, and our parks are one of our biggest defenders against the impacts of climate change,” Monaco said.
Amy Andrieux, executive director of the Museum of Contemporary African Diasporan Art, emphasized the importance of New York City parks in building community and serving as a sanctuary for residents.
“But parks don’t take care of themselves,” said Andrieux, vowing to stand with park employees. “We will stand with you and fight for you until every sense of funding is restored to our parks because we need our parks, and we need you. Because what is New York City without parks? It’s not very New York City at all.”
In a statement, the Adams administration said it continues to invest in city parks, working to make them safer and cleaner for all New Yorkers.
“At the start of this year alone, we invested more than $18 million to expand cleaning to 100 more areas that need it most at 64 parks, staff a new recreation center in East Flatbush, and expand the fight against rats,” a spokesperson for the mayor told Brooklyn Paper. “We remain dedicated to making meaningful investments to make sure our parks remain our city’s greatest backyards.”
