July 30, 2009: Vol. 32, No. 30

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July 30, 2009 / Brooklyn news / Fort Greene / Meadows of Shame

Locals trash new Fort Greene cans

By Thomas Nocera

for The Brooklyn Paper

The dozen new garbage cans that were installed last weekend in Fort Greene Park have left many users of the relatively clean greensward wondering whose trashy idea that was.

“It’s beautifully kept and aesthetically wonderful already,” said David Mandes, a student at Brooklyn Technical HS, which is directly across from the park. “But they can’t hurt.”

His friend Nathan Thompson was equally confused as to why such a clean park would need more cans.

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“It’s been kept perfectly clean since I’ve been coming,” said Thompson.

The confusion comes as the city is under fire from users of Prospect Park in nearby Park Slope, where huge summertime crowds have so overwhelmed existing garbage receptacles that one local newspaper has started running regular updates under the heading, “Meadows of Shame.”

Still, one critic of the Parks Department’s efforts in Park Slope was pleased for his counterparts in Fort Greene.

“Good for them,” said Bob Ipcar, head of Fellowship in the Interest of Dogs and their Owners, a Prospect Park canine group, and an outspoken critic of this summer’s filth. “If [Fort Greene Park] is anything like what’s happening in Prospect Park, it needs all the help it can get.”

Ipcar wants more than just a few garbage drums in Prospect Park, saying only the installation of large Dumpsters can solve the problem of too much trash and not enough places to put it.

“We need them here, big ones,” he said. “Soon.”

A Parks Department spokesman had an easy explanation for why Fort Greene Park got the new trash ports.

“We received request from members of the community” and fulfilled it, said the spokesman, Phil Abramson. “In the end, it’s decided by requests and the availability [of cans] at the time of the request.”

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