Central Park’s Great Lawn is normally closed to dogs, but for a couple of glorious days the fences have come down to prepare for the Global Citizen concert on Saturday.
On Thursday morning, dozens of dogs took advantage of the sudden freedom, luxuriating on the soft grass.
Photos by Carol Tannenhauser.
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great for people who are going to soon bring out the blankets they can put them over some dog piss and maybe some poops. Hopefully will be cleaned before the event but pee runs deep, yo.
get your dog off our lawn!
“Our lawn”
gee are u a cats human being? That’s how cats view us, while dogs want to be our friends. Must dog owners pick up there poop and the coming rain will wash away any peep on the grass by the 23rd. Hopefully the people coming to the “global” concert will take their tons of trash withy them. not leave it all around the park as usual. This is being pushed as a concert but it is actually a political event. Watch who speaks and even what the artists say about the us. The PR will be billed as look how many should up to support global ideas etc when must people are only there to see the bands etc.
Hope they take all the needles, wine bottles, human poop and other assorted leftovers with then. The pineitorium has already become heavily used by people shooting up at night. There are needles and/or syringes all around that area. And around the play grounds on the west side of the park. Don’t believe it? look around in the bushes behind the benches ringing the play grounds. But do not pick them up with your bare hands. Tell the park attendant and he/she can sweep it up or use gloves or something to pick it up. There may be blond or other human contaminants on the syringes as well as the needles
to anyone complaining of dog pee (Chase, etc.) …what of bird, squirrel goose, (and ummm human, yes they do) pee ?
This reminds me of that old George Carlin bit about water and fish. I’m paraphrasing here but something like:
You drink water?!! That’s gross…you know fish *&%# in it, right?
That line precedes Carlin by about 20 years.
Interesting, I don’t doubt it. It sounds like it could have been an old Vaudeville line or at least the Catskills.
Good stuff though! The classics always live on.:)
Just out of curiosity, why are dogs not allowed on the Great Lawn? I suppose I spend more time uptown but I don’t remember any restrictions.
No problem, just pick up the poop.
Sorry, but this does not warm my heart. Nobody wants to sit on or step in what dogs leave behind. Even after owners pick up after the dog remnants remain…unless you rip out the grass onto which it was sticking. There’s a reason dogs aren’t allowed.
Just because the fences are down, does not mean dogs are allowed. If you leave your front door open, is everyone allowed to come in?
Take care of the park and it will take care of you.
But not so nice when folks end up stepping or sitting in dog poop…
Great to see the dogs frolicking here once again. Even if it’s only for a few days. I used to take my pup out to play frisbee back before it was off limits. We had a ball.
I thought you had a frisbee
Ha!I get it.
I feel that the Upper West Side now has too many dogs. They are everywhere, and the sidewalks are a mess. I love dogs as much as the next person, but this situation strikes me as too much of a good thing. And why individuals have to have 2 or 3 dogs in a crowded urban environment is beyond me.
Sounds like you don’t love dogs as much as the next person. Just sayin.
Well said. Here on W73 where the Canine
Shop is we are under siege with a great many
dogs and their dropping. It’s deterioting the quality of life along with the bikes. Too much – the city has become over loaded. Will anyone want to continue to pay these prices as the City descends into chaos and mismanagement?
Sip some wine with that whine! Maybe you’ll chill out and grow a heart.
I feel that the Upper West Side now has too many kids. They are everywhere, and the sidewalks are a mess with strollers, scooters, and slow walkers with short legs. I love kids as much as the next person, but this situation strikes me as too much of a good thing. And why individuals have to have two or three kids in a crowded, urban environment, during a global, environmental crisis, is beyond me.
Best comment I’ve read in a long time. Thanks for making me smile.
I guess you are one of those people who is easily amused, because that wasn’t terribly original or creative. I’ve seen this technique many times on message boards, where someone copies another post and substitutes some different words to make fun of it.
Hear! Hear! Whats the attraction to procreation anyway? Brats!
And my dog doesn’t cost the taxpayers enormous amounts of money for an education, pre-K (i.e., babysitting), CHIP, etc.
Nah, those kids just don’t give you the real, true experience unless their parents also let them lick your legs, and let them pee and poo on the sidewalks. And they only need to casually swipe the poo away, the pee can stay.
Some people prefer dogs ad others prefer kids. Dogs are quieter, friendlier .
OK, there is such a thing as a saturation point, where the neighborhood can’t absorb more dogs. In my opinion we are nearing that point. It is affecting the quality of life of people who do not own dogs. Many posters have complained about not being able to walk down the sidewalks without stepping over excrement and streams of urine. Additionally, dog walkers are constantly coming in and out of my building throughout the day. While it might not be high up on my list of concerns, it has become incredibly annoying lately.
Ahh, this is where those hearty dog haters come out.
Oh dear, we are so dainty and fragile – what if we sit where an animal peed. I mean, I know that people all over the world thrive in proximity to animals, and in much of Europe dogs are welcome pretty much everywhere, but what if my delicate self sits where a dog was??
Toughen up. If you sit on grass, you can reasonably assume that some animal, be it tame or wild, may have peed there.
Or even a human being. I see a lot of things on the ground that couldn’t possibly have come out of a dog, lol.
Well said, OriginalMark!
Great Lawn and Sheep Meadow are the only places one can walk barefoot absentmindedly in this city. I love my dog, but I get why dogs aren’t allowed.
Seriously. They complain about dog poop and then go outside and breathe in all the contaminants, touch the poles on the subway, door handles, movie theater seats, they drink alcohol excessively, and eat foods covered/filled with toxic chemicals. Makes complete sense to me.
All it takes is a few dog tearing up the grass to ruin the lawn.
Of course these dog owners care little for the greater good.
Exactly, the problem is the tearing up of carefully nurtured (and expensive grass) not just the fecal residues. I too love dogs but because I do I think it’s nearly criminal that so many are kept in small apartments by owners who barely care for them. How many owners walking dogs pay attention to their dogs? most I see are buried in their phones. Dog walker reading phone messages stopped smack in the middle of the Natural History Museum and nearly got run over the day
Liz: Do you mean to say that 100 dogs (at most) did more damage than 65,000 people in the park? Not to mention the trucks that come in out of the park (go look at the ivy at West Drive and 86th St. that the 18 wheelers tore up). Not gonna take the BS anymore. Scream IT.
Here, it would be fair to substitute kids for dogs. Kids zombie/hostages in forward facing strollers, while parental unit or unit sub. chats with more important person.
This behavior continues on into the playground, shopping, etc.
Whatever happened to orienting the kid to your doings? I guess verbal skills –the all important personal exchange–is no longer considered important.
Possibly when it comes to personal chit-chat, the dog gets the better part of the stick with these parents, who are so stressed out from their constant “connectivity.”
A “few dogs” can’t ruin the Great Lawn.
And your generalization is laughable.
It’s great that dogs can run about & enjoy themselves, as long as the owners pick up their poops. A good rain should hopefully clear the pee.
MEOW!
If only stepping in it were like silly putty–non-stick and odorless…
I often dab a drop of perfume right onto the tip of my nose. (Yeah, that’s me:)
Vote on yer fav scents now…
Love the dogs, don’t love the inconsiderate peeps.
Hope ya don’t mind the tiny scent emitted by my nostrils.
… Who’s that good looking airedale? A twin airedale wants to know! (honestly, we actually thought this was our dog at first– quite the double-take! Our Arrow was born 11/14/16, curious is yours is from same litter/ breeder in CT)
Here is the solution I have come up with for the dog waste epidemic on the UWS and Manhattan.
No more dogs going to the bathroom in public. Just like regular people. You want to compare your doggies to kids? OK then, be held to the same standards. Do kids soil our streets every day, constantly. No. Teach these precious little things to use one of those pads or put down some newspaper or whatever you need to do. I don’t really care. That’s your problem and your choice.
Train them appropriately and it shouldn’t be a problem. There you go…problem solved. You are all welcome. Keep it in your apartments instead of turning the whole city into a toilet.
Either that or just ban all dogs from the city. Period. I could probably be elected on this platform alone as a single issue candidate.
What can I say? I’m a cat person.:)
Seriously, I always thought that “curb your dog”
meant: train then to pee and poop in the street, right next to the curb. NOT on bags the sanitation workers have to pick up, dripping with piss, NOT onto the large flowerpot/plant right outside someone else’s building’s doorway, NOT in the plant beds, NOT on the stoops, etc. It is weird that no one seems to have any shame or pride of place or person, but figure it’s the dog–it’s an animal thing–what do you expect it to do? I love animals, but it Is a weird attitude for humans to have toward other humans.
Forget the dogs.
How much is it going to cost to reseed the grass after 60K plus stomped all over it. They will have compressed the soil making it harder for the roots to do their needed work.
And that’s not to mention the damage down to the lawn with all the trucks that came to deliver and set up the stage. The crane alone left gauges several inches deep in the lawn where it chewed up the earth