Yes, when Thomas took over day to day oversight of the park in the 1980s, the place was a shambles, a victim, like so many things in those days, of municipal neglect. There was a Parks Department with a mandate to run the city’s open space, of course, but that agency failed.
Out of that failure came the Faustian bargain offered by the Tupper Thomases of the world: put our struggling public spaces under quasi-public control, set aside some of the normal rules, raise private money from rich people, and we’ll make sure wealthy neighborhoods have a suitable backyard.
Read the whole thing here. Part of that "Faustian bargain", of "setting aside normal rules", was letting dog owners rule the parks. And let everyone else be damned.
Hat-tip to Christina.
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Our friend Marcia was in the Prospect Park rose garden this morning at 8:45 with her two unleashed rat terriers.
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