Cops Turn Away Parkgoers At Pier 2 Basketball Courts

By on May 26, 2016 8:20 pm in 84th Precinct, brooklyn bridge park, Brooklyn Heights, News, Public Safety

According to today’s Gothamist report, parkgoers were shut out of the Pier 2 basketball courts starting at 3:30 p.m. yesterday. People who were already there were allowed to stay, but no one else was allowed in. NYPD confirmed that there was no particular incident, but that the shut-out was implemented to control the crowds. There was no head count given at the time, but an NYPD spokesperson said “it got very crowded.” The official capacity under the Pier 2 roof, encompassing the basketball courts, handball courts, and the roller rink, is 800 people.

Gothamist quoted an unnamed Brooklyn Heights resident as saying she and many neighbors were happy with the increased police action at Pier 2. “Brooklyn Bridge Park has really engaged with all the stakeholders. Everyone is very happy about that,” she said. A Brooklyn High School of the Arts student, Kahliyah Brown, didn’t agree. “It’s bad that people fight, but we all get to hang out and meet new people. The amount of cops that come here, they pressure us and make us feel a little unsafe rather than protected.”

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  • StudioBrooklyn

    Blunts before 6pm? How gauche!

  • redlola

    Yes, blunts anywhere where there are children are gauche. no parent needs to explain weed to their kid cause someone is too selfish to care about the needs of anyone else or understand what’s appropriate for the environment. your lame efforts to keep defending ratchet ass behavior is actually annoying to people working actual social justice goals. They dislike white liberals like you who obfuscate real issues with this these bullshit passes for bullshit behavior. Nothing more offensive than to act like certain ppl aren’t capable of living up to basic standards of social decency and have to be treated like remedials. You are so predictable it is painful.

  • Sharon T

    One of the huge scandals in all this is the role of several blogs in this situation:

    Not so much on BHB but on other major blogs, comments assailing or condemning the police in BBP, often in the most obscene terms, appear but comments which are PRO police are “removed” as being “inappropriate!

    ” You see someone say that the police are overreacting, and even the most even toned reasonable factual observation of the real conditions which caused the police action are censored. Wonderful blog land.

  • ColumbiaHeightster

    Exactly what consequences do you have in mind?

  • redlola

    I posted a comment this morning that was initially approved here but disappeared. Done with BHB. I have no patience for pandering and censorship.

  • Andrew Porter

    I post under my real name, hence try not to write inflammatory remarks.

    Pandering: “gratify or indulge (an immoral or distasteful desire, need, or habit or a person with such a)”. You sure you’re using the right word? Censorship: confusing that with editing?

  • redlola

    Andrew why are you even speaking to me? I have not addressed you anywhere. However, spewing condescending drivel without context only makes you look like an idiot. Pandering as used in the context of my comment is the act of expressing one’s views in accordance with the likes of a group to which one is attempting to appeal. This blog panders to a certain viewpoint. Censorship is the suppression of speech, public communication or other information which may be considered objectionable, harmful, sensitive, politically incorrect or inconvenient as determined by governments, media outlets, authorities or other groups or institutions. This is exactly what happened to my comment. Your efforts at sounding smart/snarky failed because you are neither.

  • Love Laner

    I’m sorry but there are 100% teenagers who live in the heights and smoke weed on the streets here. As a Love Lane resident I unfortunately have to deal with seeing them on a regular basis once St. Ann’s lets out…They also litter.

  • redlola

    The people I have seen smoking on the promenade in daylight when kids are out are not bk heights teenagers. that is not to say they are not smoking have just not seen it personally on the promenade. it is an undeniable fact that the amount of trash strewn on the promenade in the summer increases because ppl who are not from the neighborhood come here en masse. there is no mcdonald’s that close to here and that is most of the trash that i see. i am very protective of the sanctity of this community. when i see kids smoking and throwing cigarettes beyond their awning by the st. george and smoking weed there, i have reported it to the ppl who manage the dorm and changes were made to enforcement. i personally have no issue with weed as long as it is not around kids/pets. i have a huge issue with the promenade looking like coney island.

  • StudioBrooklyn

    1. If you have a hard time “explaining” weed to your kid I don’t see why that’s anyone else’s fault.

    2. “white liberals like you”? What makes you so certain that any of these characterizations describe me accurately? As far as I’m concerned, you have no idea what I look like, what my politics are, or whether my demographic identity can even be painted in such a broad brush.

  • redlola

    no one needs to explain weed to kids until they are ready because someone else does not know how to act. your contortions to justify BS behavior as classic old white liberal. I have seen you in action on enough threads. No one who genuinely believes in equality works so hard to hand out passes for ratchetness while making it everyone’s fault but the people engaged in the ratchetness. Just stop.

  • AEB
  • StudioBrooklyn

    Your ideas about who needs to explain what to kids, and when, are your own. Most parents, myself included, don’t respond well to having these notions dictated to them by people who don’t, at the very least, have expertise in child psychology. My approach to guiding my child into comprehending the realities of human existence might be different than yours, but it would be rather presumptuous of me to insist you conform to my philosophy. I only ask the same in return. I think that’s reasonable.

    This brings me to another point, which is that the hierarchy of public nuisances to which I choose to respond is clearly different than yours as well. I first ask, “who is the victim and what is the crime?” and as far as I’m concerned no one is adversely affected by marijuana being smoked on the promenade. I do have an issue with people littering (such as the discarded byproducts of smoking apparatuses), in fact it drives me crazy, but I certainly don’t feel threatened by it. I think litter is symptomatic of our neighborhood containing a major draw for visitors (the Promenade holds arguably the best view of lower Manhattan and the upper bay, and has been the location of many famous scenes in the entertainment world), who litter with the same regularity with which they breathe, and NOT of some existential threat to the sanctity of our way of life. In fact I find that notion of feeling threatened to be somewhat absurd, hence my snark.

  • redlola

    ???

  • redlola

    Your ideas about who needs to explain what to whom and when are your own. Exactly. Cause you want to explain weeds to your 4 year old, i and many other don’t and someone openly smoking weed in a community space in the middle of the day is just not a compelling enough reason to be taken down that road when it is not necessary to go there….especially when smoking weed in public is still illegal and thus should not even be happening especially in a public park type area (just like cigarettes).

  • StudioBrooklyn

    So how come you’re not complaining about having to explain cigarettes on the Promenade, or people who evade sales tax by registering their cars out of state, or people who drive 70 in a 65, etc.? Those things affect you as adversely, if not more, and are also examples of things that are both pervasive and technically illegal. Perhaps you’re even guilty of some of these. Why do you focus on weed?

  • redlola

    Like I said, your contortion to justify stuff that you don’t need to be justifying are amusing. My 4 year old cannot smell car registration or gauge how fast ppl are driving and frankly there are few cigarette butts or the promenade or people smoking cigarettes there. However, the scent of marijuana is something my child has smelled and asked about and I don’t see the need to be forced to engage in that conversation with her because of someone else’s ratchet, selfish behavior. If you want to raise your kids differently, that’s on you, but given what we are discussing, your points are truly laughable. I am done with this chat with you as way more sensical and important things await.

  • StudioBrooklyn

    I’m going to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you’re perceptive enough to understand the ways you and your child are negatively impacted by things like speeding and sales tax evasion in your own state. So it really does come down to the fact that you don’t want to have to explain a fact of life to a four year old? You’re missing out on one of the greatest joys of parenthood.

  • ColumbiaHeightster

    Mary, can you explain the “Westchester” comment please? Not sure what you are getting at there.

  • ColumbiaHeightster

    Ummm, there IS a McDonald’s in Brooklyn Heights. What are you talking about?

  • AEB

    I thought a time-out might be in order, and that the article was of interest.

  • redlola

    Fulton Mall is not brooklyn heights and with shake shack and five guys trust and believe BK heights residents are not going to mcdonalds

  • ColumbiaHeightster

    Correct, Fulton Mall is Downtown Brooklyn…but there is a McDonald’s on Court and Livingston, which most certainly IS Brooklyn Heights.

  • redlola

    and I’m going to give you the benefit of the doubt that you understand enough English to process what I said. Contort away on your own.

  • StudioBrooklyn

    I find your hostile tone rather unpleasant. Instead of just accusing me of “contorting” (did you mean “distorting?”) your words, why don’t you clarify? It seems like you’re having trouble trying to just state your opposition to pot smoking in general, and your dislike of some group of people with whom you associate that activity. Not sure why you dragged your kid into it, that seemed like a rhetorical misstep to me (which is what I’ve been laboriously pointing out).

  • redlola

    I would argue that court and livingston is downtown Brooklyn not Brooklyn Heights. Regardless, like I said, trust and believe Brooklyn Heights residents are not going out of their way for that McDonald’s. Step in there any time of day or night and see for yourself. However, ppl coming from other areas or the movie theater and then proceed to the promenade certainly do patronize it. Let’s not pretend that the mess on the promenade doesn’t increase exponentially in the summer.

  • ColumbiaHeightster

    If you would argue that Court and Livingston is not BK Heights, you would be wrong. I can appreciate that people have different opinions on this blog, and that’s great, but that’s not an opinion; that’s a factual inaccuracy. The boundaries are well defined: Atlantic, Court, Old Fulton, Cadman. You’re just wrong.

  • redlola

    I find your straw man arguments disingenuine and your attitude condescending. You have tried to vilify anyone on these threads who doesn’t share your viewpoint. I am a partner at a large law firm. I have no problem stating my position to anything. You however, have a clear problem, accepting any position, that does not mirror yours. Contorting is straw manning. Taking stuff that is not a direct comparison or just irrelevant to the issue at hand like fraudulent auto registrations and comparing it to my point about smoking weed. I’m sorry if you can’t understand or agree with the fundamental premise that there is nothing so important about illegally smoking weed on the promenade that I and many other parents who have sense need to be subjected to certain conversations we are not interested in having with our children when they are at a certain age. Second of all, if you don’t like assumptions about you, don’t make assumptions about me. My daughter is the most important person in my life and the reason I am in Brooklyn Heights is because i care about her environment. She is also biracial. Her father is Jamaican and I spend a good portion of my life around ppl you think “i don’t like” several of whom smoke weed. Never around children though — their own or anyone else’s. That is what mature, sensible adults do. i have shared your comments with them and they think you are ludicrous. This is really the last I am going to say about this because speaking to you is an exercise in futility at best.

  • redlola

    consequences that are appropriate for people violating the law.

  • redlola

    like i said in my comment, regardless if it technically is or is not in bk heights, that mcdonald’s is not a top destination for heights residents so them bringing the majority of those strewn about containers to the promenade is highly unlikely. that is the larger more important point that is laboriously being obfuscated in neighborhood geography.

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