I assume New York homosex enthusiasts have switched to Grindr et al, yes? ----------------------------- In a wild, overrun corner of Fort Tryon Park, a secluded area had become a popular destination for those seeking clandestine, casual sex. The spot became so notorious that it also drew attention from the police: In some years, officers patrolling the park, in Upper Manhattan, would issue public-sex summonses about once a week.
But last year, not a single public-sex summons was handed out.
A similar pattern holds true across New York City. Officers wrote 432 tickets in 2007 for what is referred to as “sex in park,” according to Police Department data. Last year, through late December, they wrote six. Not only are summonses down, but fewer New Yorkers are calling 311 to lodge complaints about lewd acts in public. In 2013, there were 483 complaints of lewd acts; last year, there were 283, according to the city.
The decline has been so precipitous that it raises obvious questions: Are the police telling frisky parkgoers simply to move along, or have New Yorkers lost some of their lust? Is it the Police Department that has changed, or is it us? The answer may be a combination of both: City parks are more crowded, with visitors traipsing through even some out-of-the-way spaces; and police officers are also increasingly looking to solve neighborhood problems without resorting to handcuffs or tickets.
The police still target the most active locations and make arrests, yet those related to sex in public have also been on the downswing. The department recorded slightly more than 470 misdemeanor public lewdness arrests last year, down from nearly 700 in 2010. (Reported rapes have increased, but those in parks are rare.) Phil Walzak, the Police Department’s top spokesman, cited a number of factors to explain the decline, including better coordination with the Parks Department, new policing philosophies and the decline in complaints, which he said was “probably driven by fewer overall occurrences.”
The five areas with the most “sex in park” tickets handed out over the last 10 years were Inwood and Washington Heights; Central Park; Morningside Heights; central Queens around Forest Park; and an area of Flushing that contains Kissena Park and other parks. The areas with zero park-sex tickets recorded over 10 years were some with little to no park space to speak of — Midtown Manhattan; Jackson Heights in Queens; Canarsie in Brooklyn — and others like the central Bronx neighborhoods of East Tremont and Belmont, where there are parks but, apparently, no sex seen by officers.
The act — considered a violation of park rules that currently carries a $100 fine — has to be witnessed by an officer for any action to be taken.
“You walk through the park and see a guy leaning against a tree: What crime is being committed there?” said Officer Bryan Polster, whose assignment includes Fort Tryon Park. “Just to be meeting someone in the park is not a crime. And I think that’s why the complaints are nonexistent.” His precinct once topped all others for criminal tickets for park sex, with 81 tickets in 2007. The area contains several large parks, including Fort Tryon’s bucolic green space with sweeping Hudson River views and several wooded areas that have long been known as cruising spots, particularly for gay men.
In Fort Tryon, city officials met with residents in 2015 about the public-sex displays, and came up with a preventive strategy: A chain-link fence was installed to block access to the popular hidden spot; nearby, overgrown plantings cover another area that had drawn complaints. In Harlem’s Marcus Garvey Park, residents in a towering condominium across the street on Fifth Avenue have long complained about their view of “the mountain” — a rocky rise of New York schist about 70 feet high where people meet for sex or to use drugs.