Please Keep Off The Grass

I know I vowed that this blog would focus on the positive aspects of life with dogs in NYC, but, something happened today and I'm taking off my rose-colored glasses for this post. I'm not really going back on my vow anyway because my issue isn't with the dogs of NYC, it is the people. We cannot hold dogs (or even children) responsible for laughing in the face of so-called quality of life laws such as the leash law or the law against climbing trees in our parks. The adult people are the ones who should be aware of the laws, and, help the dogs and children be good, considerate neighbors.

When you're a dog walker, as I am, it puts you at risk of being a sort of Gomer Pyle (*see below) of Manhattan. This is a city where people are largely good, kind, and law-abiding, respectful stewards of their home town and the public spaces we share.

The Gomer Pyle in me fires on all cylinders when we're walking through Central Park. The park is my main turf (again, no pun), and, I've come think of the volunteers and staff who tend to the lawns, trees, and gardens as my colleagues. The staff especially, the Zone Gardeners, hold a special place in my heart because they are out there tending to the park in every kind of weather, just as I'm out there tending to my dog clients, in pouring rain, in zero degree temperatures, in hundred degree heat, diligently and lovingly trimming the lawn edges, piling shovels of stinky manure onto flower beds, monitoring the trees for beetle or other damages. When you admire the verdant fields and canopies, and amazing colorful blooms of spring, don't just thank Mother Nature, thank the Zone Gardener and the Central Park volunteers.

One such ZG has been waging a single-handed battle against foot and paw traffic on the barely existent lawns along the paths behind the Metropolitan Museum of Art. First, these lawns were decimated by one of the local upscale nursery schools whose children take their recess there, plowing into the mud after rain, trampling seedlings that just never have a chance to become grass. Now, before you label me a curmudgeon who hates children and doesn't want them to enjoy the great outdoors, please believe me, that's not the case. I love to see these kids out there in the fresh air (even in the cold winter) having great fun. And the children don't go there on their own, they play where they are told and nowhere else. Their teachers bring them to those lawns. What I don't understand is why they can't vary their location and give these little lawns a rest. And what's wrong with playing in the playgrounds?

Last week this particular ZG, I'll call him Kermit, (because its not easy being green) and I commiserated about this one regular park-goer who ignores the off-leash rules (the park extends a courtesy and suspends the leash law between 9pm and 9am, in designated areas--dog-friendly areas, not the Forever Wild nature areas and corridors (like The Ramble), not in fountains, lakes, ponds, on playground, ball fields, and not on the paths or roads--dogs are to be leashed entering and leaving the designated off-leash lawns). This gal with two black labs has no control over her dog. I've run into her almost every morning for a good year now. She has been warned (by parks enforcement) to no avail. These two dogs race ahead of her, jumping fences, trampling new flowers and grass all the way to the Fifth Avenue exit.

Kermit had re-seeded the bare sections of these lawns and installed chicken wire along the wrought iron fence in hopes of keeping paws and feet out. He told me that morning as he was affixing the chicken wire to the fence that the labs had just been in their and the owner couldn't get them out.

Fast-forward to this morning when as I was exiting the park I saw one of those child soccer classes, the ones for the toddlers. The group's nets and cones were all set up right on Kermit's newly seeded "lawn." I spoke to some of the adults, parents, nannys, grandparents, and all of them looked at me as if I were speaking a foreign language (maybe I was). I called to the two leaders of the group, and they didn't respond. I thought, maybe they don't hear? I asked the nearest nanny to please tap one on the shoulder, and, after what seemed like an assault of tapping because this gal was just not looking up, she finally came over. I explained and pointed to the ground where the seeds were very obvious. I said "can't you see that this is a newly seeded lawn that has been fenced off?"

"I have a permit from the Parks Dept." said she. I said "fine, OK, but, do you have to set up in a freshly seeded area?" The next reply floored me and I just stood there with my jaw hanging open. She said "Oh, we're not allowed to play on the lawns."

What is a newly seeded area if not a lawn to be?

I think the Parks Department needs to spell things out for people. I'm sure they meant, these sports teams are allowed to set up only in the areas that haven't been seeded and aren't going to be seeded any time soon. I'm positive they don't mean to permit organized sports on newly seeded lawns.

Oh, and for any readers who don't know who the heck Gomer Pyle is and never heard him say "Citizen's arrest, citizen's arrest," please see this article "What Is A Citizen's Arrest?"