Ms. Deborah Jessamy Zingale did call me back shortly and said she had spoken with Captain Calderon.  She said he advised that officers went to Annadale Playground but that the homeless person was in the “Park” area of the playground, and therefore he was allowed to be in the park while the playground is open.

I was shocked and outraged by this assertion. There is no “Park” area in Annadale Playground.  A Park (which is not an exclusive use area) cannot be inside of a Playground (which is an exclusive use area).  It is like saying New York City is in Queens.  It is possible for a Playground to be inside of a Park, or adjacent to one but you can’t have a park inside of a playground.

The key here is that no adult is allowed in the playground unless they are with a child under 12 and this rule applies to the entire playground.  Mr. Kadinsky, the Community Coordinator in City Councilwoman Karen Koslowitz’s office confirmed this to me previously with regard to Annadale Playground.

Here is a link to the Parks Department website that describes this rule, which is also posted right at the entrance to the playground:

http://www.nycgovparks.org/rules/section-1-05 - scroll down pretty far, almost all the way to the bottom to see Section s Exclusive Areas, Paragraph 1: “Exclusive Childrens Playgrounds: Adults allowed in playground areas only when accompanied by a child under the age of twelve (12).”

I was unable to contain my frustration at this point, threatened to bring NY1 cameras to the playground to show the world how absurd the assertion that there is a “Park” inside the Playground, demanded to speak to Captain Calderon’s superior officer, but realized that it’s not Captain Calderon’s decision. Surely there is a document that identifies the entirety of Annadale Playground as an Exclusive Area.  Ms. Deborah Jessamy Zingale indicated that Parklands would have that information and she would check.  I did not hear back from her.

Later, after work, I found the number of the Director of Parklands, Ms. Colleen Alderson and left a message asking her to call me back confirming that Annadale Playground does not have a Park inside of it.

Today I got a call from Ms. Deborah Jessamy-Zingale, the Assistant to the Commissioner of Urban Park Service at NYC Department of Parks & Recreation.  Actually, that’s from her LinkedIn page.  According to the Parks Department organization chart, the Commissioner of Urban Park Service is an Assistant Commissioner under the Assistant Commissioner for Public Programs, who in turn is under the First Deputy Commissioner [to the Commissioner of the Department].  She was calling me on July 24th in response to a somewhat urgently worded communication I had sent to Parks Commissioner Veronica M. White through their website on July 1st.  On that page it says, “Please fill out the Contact the Commissioner form . The Commissioner’s office will route your message to the proper party for a prompt response.”

Here is a picture of Parks Commissioner Veronica M. White.

I wonder if Commissioner Veronica M. White thinks that 23 days between submitting a message and getting a response is “prompt”.

I’m not sure why it took 23 days for the Parks Department to call me back but here is the message that I sent back on July 1st:

“Dear Commissioner White. I need your help please. There is a homeless gentleman who has moved into Annadale playground in Queens, across the street from my building. He requires many health services and homeless outreach. Also it isnt such a good idea to have a homeless person living in a childrens playground.  He publicly urinates and defecates right where the children are supposed to play. He has been there for weeks and makes a lot of noise very late at night after the park closes and I can’t sleep.  He also throws around garbage everywhere and he smokes.  Also there is a huge pile of his possessions on the sidewalk in front of the playground. Please I just want to enjoy the playground and go there with my daughter. Can you please help? I have already called the police (112 Precinct) many many times. Thank you very much.”

For future reference, your service request number is 1-1-867816589.

You’re limited to 150 words through the submission form but this basically sums it up.  Since I sent this message, note that the problem of the huge pile of his possessions seems to have been fixed, likely from the action of Officer Dave Seteros of the 112th Precinct, who I believe arranged with the Department of Sanitation to have it removed.

Ms. Zingale explained that my message was routed to Urban Park Service because they oversee the Park Enforcement Patrol (PEP).  She said she had been in touch with Captain David Calderon, who is in charge of the Queens branch of the PEP.  She said that PEP officers had gone to Annadale Playground several times and confirmed the presence of the homeless person and that her office had arranged for homeless outreach visits. She explained that they (the Parks Dept) does not actually perform the outreach visits but they work with a variety of community groups. Perhaps this was the two guys from the VA who I spoke to on July 5th.  I asked her if she could tell me the name of the homeless outreach group that had been sent but she was unable to provide the information at the time. I also asked her if there were records of the multilple visits from PEP and she gave me an answer that led me to believe that she wasn’t exactly sure if there were records or not of the PEP visits.

Here is a picture of Ms. Deborah Jessamy Zingale.

She explained that after several visits from PEP officers, if the homeless person was still there, they would have the homeless person removed from the park.  She also clarified that the removal would be done by local Law Enforcement (meaning the 112th Precinct).  I expressed my concern about the open loop nature of this process because the homeless person could just return.

She said she would get in touch with Captain Calderon and call me back, possibly today.

I was unable to return Mr. Kadinsky’s call from last week but today I received another message, this time on my cell phone, asking me about the permanent homeless presence in the PS175 playground.

Here is a picture of Mr. Kadinsky.

In the message he relayed that he had heard from other constituents that there were a greater police presence around Annadale Playground.  I am unable to confirm this claim but likely what he was talking about was all the times I had called the 112th Precinct asking them to send over a car.

Since the garbage pile was removed in July 8th, I still have seen HG in the park occasionally, and he is still occasionally spending the night, waking me up very early in the morning or in the middle of the night with his shouting, although his appearances have become intermittent.

I got a call today from Community Coordinator Sergey Kadinsky of Karen Koslowitz’s office.  He left a message on my home phone saying that Councilwoman Koslowitz, who represents District 29, had been in contact with Captain Conforti of the 112th Precinct and that “they promised more enforcement.”

This is the 2nd time that Captain Thomas Conforti has made a promise regarding the permanent homeless presence in Annadale Playground. The first time was at a community meeting at PS174Q in Rego Park on October 23rd, 2012 when he personally gave me his word that he would take care of the problem.  So just to keep score:

Number of times Captain Thomas Conforti has promised to take care of the permanent homeless presence in Annadale Playround:

The 1st promise was made to me directly and the 2nd promise I heard about third-hand but has been said to have been made directly to a NYC Councilmember.  Captain Thomas Conforti has an opportunity to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that he is a man of his word and that he keeps promises to the people of the 112th Precinct and others in City Government.

It should be noted that this call came spontaneously from Karen Koslowitz’s office without me prompting them first for a call back.

HG was still in the playground the entire weekend but when I came home on Monday, July 8th, the garbage pile had been removed.  I’ll guess that Officer Dave Seteros did what he said he was going to do and contact the Dept of Sanitation to get the garbage pile removed.  

I won’t be posting a picture of the sidewalk without the garbage pile.  Anyone can imagine a sidewalk with no garbage pile in their head.

Also, HG was not in the park.

After hanging up with Officer Dave Seteros of the Community Affairs Desk at the 112th Precinct at 6:25, I noticed HG still in the children’s playground on 65th Avenue. HG took off on his bicycle at 6:45pm and exited at the 64th Road side of the playground. I figured we’d have another miss and dejectedly gave up.

But I happened to look out at 7:00pm and saw bicycle #1 in the park and about 2 seconds later, I saw car #5441 pull up at the 65th Avenue entrance to Annadale Playground.

No other than Officer Dave Seteros himself got out of the car. By then HG had put on a grey shirt but P.O. Seteros was able to find HG immediately.  I saw him looking over at the rules posted right outside the playground entrance which can be seen in the picture below to the left, obscured by the leaves, possibly to verify the Exclusive Area rule mentioned in an earlier post. Shortly, another gentleman came over and was talking with both of them, very likely as a translator, but possibly to argue with P.O. Seteros about harassing HG.  I couldn’t hear what they were saying.

You can clearly see where it says “Community Affairs” on his back.  I knew it was him because we had met once before in person and I clearly saw him from the front as he was exiting the squad car.  After a few minutes, I saw HG produce a small piece of paper. I wasn’t sure if it were an ID or not.

I’m not an expert in Community Affairs but I think Officer Seteros did a few things just right - he did not have the sirens on, no flashing lights, either, and the entire time he stayed on the other side of the fence to give the very clear message that he intended only to communicate, not physically engage or arrest anyone.

About 1 minute after he left in the squad car, he called me from the car  and said “so you saw me there”, meaning he knew I could see exactly that area of the playground where he was standing.  He told me that there was a bit of a language barrier, which confirms the big guy with the Champion T-shirt was a translator, and that he told HG he couldn’t stay in the playground anymore. He also said that the piece of paper was an address for a homeless shelter (and I’ll speculate that it was given to HG by the Veterans Affairs guys I saw earlier).  He also said that he told HG he couldn’t keep his stuff - the garbage pile - on the street anymore and that he would have the Department of Sanitation remove it. I then interrupted him to confirm that he would do that and Officer Dave Seteros said  yes, that he would arrange for it but he couldn’t say when it would be removed.  Then he told me that if after 9pm if HG were still there to call it in to the 112th main switchboard.  I thanked him for his personal concern for HG on a human level and for his professional service.

As soon as I got home from work today, I saw HG in the playground.  I also saw two large fellas with badges on red lanyards (not a police shield) walking near the 65th Avenue entrance, one of whom was taking pictures of the men playing dominoes at the chess tables. I thought they were from the 112th Precinct, as I was expecting Officer Dave Seteros to visit, and these guys were definitely big enough to be NYPD. They were huge.

I ran downstairs immediately and found them near the bathrooms, asking around.  I knew they were looking for HG.  I overheard one of them talking with a mom in the playground who said the guy [HG] hadn’t been there.  Now of course HG has been there every day, all day for weeks, so this person was either clueless or intentionally lying.  Officer Gigi Redzematovic also told me that when she went there to ask around, she heard the same thing, that the guy was gone.

I asked one of them “You looking for someone?”, and he said he was looking for the homeless guy with the stuff out on the street.  I told him yeah he’s right over there and described HG exactly.  I noticed they were wearing Veterans Administration badges (the VA logo was very easy to see), not NYPD badges.

Unfortunately, I really didn’t want to be seen talking with these guys so I took off and wasn’t able to ask them what the deal was - who sent them, why the VA was interested in a non-veteran, how I could contact them, etc.  We briefly introduced ourselves by first name and shook hands with Israel and I think the other guy was named Roy.

I wasn’t able to take any pictures of them but after I got back upstairs I saw they had brought their SUV around and I tried to zoom in on the logo on the door but it got partially obscured by a leaf. I can’t read the logo but it seems to say COMM… Community?

I’m not sure if this is the homeless outreach sent over by Councilwoman’s Koslowitz’s office, or if they were responding to someone else’s report, or of Officer Dave Seteros of the Community Affairs Desk of the 112th Precinct called these guys in.  One other possibility is that they were just driving around and happen to see the garbage pile and immediately recognized it as the belongings of a homeless person and were trying to connect with a homeless veteran.

I did not see any interaction between them and HG and they left not long after I took the picture of their SUV.

SIGHTING @ 6:10PM Well this is what they saw and what I saw as well.  Too hot today for the blue shirt - but not too hot to play dominoes. HG was sitting at one of the chess tables, shirtless, playing dominoes with the fellas who usually sit there.

I called this one in to the Community Affairs Desk at the 112th Precinct and much to my surprise, Officer Dave Seteros picked up the phone.  I told him that HG was in the park and gave a description: black pants, no shirt, brown hat, white beard.  

From this picture you can see why I had to be so specific about HG’s description - because he was mingling with the domino players.  When I mentioned that HG was playing dominoes with the other fellas, Officer Dave Seteros then said it was OK for him to be there. I think he was under the impression that the Exclusive Area rule regarding playgrounds from the Department of Parks didn’t apply to Annadale Playground.  I reminded him that no adult is allowed in the playground unless they are with a child under 12, but he didn’t seem to think that applied to the chess tables.  He said that with my logic, all the men playing dominoes weren’t supposed to be there, how could that be?  I told him I didn’t want to argue with him about it but when I called Councilwoman Koslowitz’s office and spoke with Mr. Kadinsky, that Mr. Kadinsky confirmed that no adult is allowed in the park unless they are with a child under 12 and that rule applied to the entire playground.

Here is a link to the Parks Department website that describes this rule, which is also posted right at the entrance to the playground:

http://www.nycgovparks.org/rules/section-1-05 - scroll down pretty far, almost all the way to the bottom to see Section s Exclusive Areas, Paragraph 1: “Exclusive Childrens Playgrounds: Adults allowed in playground areas only when accompanied by a child under the age of twelve (12).”

He said he would send a car over, meaning he hadn’t made it over to the playground since our earlier call.  This was at 6:25pm, after the VA guys had already left.

I got a callback from the Community Affairs Desk at the 112th Precinct today.  I got a call from Officer Dave Seteros at my home # (he left a message at around 3:30PM) and then again on my cell phone (also left a message).  Since he called me on my cell phone it was also clear that he had listened to many of the messages because I had not given him or Officer Gigi Redzematovic my cell phone number any other time except by leaving it on their answering machine previously in the week. I called back a few minutes later, but got the answering machine again.  About an hour later at 5:15PM, he called me back and we finally connected.

I don’t have a picture of Officer Dave Seteros from the front but here is a good picture of the back of his head.

He offered to go there and check it out.  He asked me if the homeless gentleman was still in the playground, but since I wasn’t at home at the time, I was unable to verify this.  I reminded him about the garbage pile and suggested if that were removed it would be a huge disincentive for HG to return to the same location.  

The Playground and the 112th Precinct are pretty close by as you can see.  One caveat is that some of the one-way streets right around the playground might make the trip a bit longer than the map software indicates, especially if one wants to enter the playground at the 65th Avenue entrance.

He also mentioned the message I had left a few days earlier when I was frustrated by the “wake up call” encounter on the 3rd of July, so I know for sure he had heard at least one of the messages.  In one of those messages I mentioned that I had started to put some of the photos I had been taking to document the permanent homeless presence in Annadale Playground on the Internet, but we didn’t discuss that.  He also said that he believed me that HG was still there.  This is a big change from what I heard from Officer Gigi Redzematovic, who seemed to be quite skeptical about whether HG was there or not when I spoke to her last week.

Unfortunately our call was disconnected but it was clear to me that he had an intention to head over to the playground.

SIGHTING AT 6:00AM: Not just a sighting, also a sounding.  HG had been in the park all night, as usual, and his shouting early this morning woke me up.  By the time I went to the window to see what he had been shouting about, he had disappeared from view but I did get a good view of the “coat closet”, the area of the fence where he has been keeping some of his belongings.

Of course when I say “some of his belongings”, it implies the bulk of his belongings are somewhere else, which would be the garbage pile outside the playground on the North side of 65th Avenue, not too far from the intersection at Yellowstone Blvd.  The garbage pile is bigger than ever today:

This is the same garbage pile that the Department of Sanitation says does not exist. I called this in to 311 over the weekend to report it and the online service map says:

“The Department of Sanitation investigated this complaint and found no condition at the location.”

I found out later that one can submit images to 311. Next time I call this in I am going to ask how to do this.  But how anyone can see the size of the garbage pile and then say “found no condition at the location.” is very difficult to understand.

A few minutes later HG re-appeared. wearing a brown hat.  I was unable to call it in to the 112th Precinct due to time constraints.

SIGHTING @ 8:30AM Well you can guess what time I woke up today on my day off, or should I say what time HG woke me up. He makes a terrible amount of noise at all hours of the day and night. He was there all night, returning to the playground after a brief rainstorm last night. He’s still wearing that same blue shirt.

Not letting the storm runoff go to waste, he took the opportunity to clean his feet, which he did in a puddle collected next to the toddler swings.  I’m sure this was very enjoyable for the parents who had their kids on the toddler swings today.

In that image there isn’t a toddler in the leftmost swing but there were other people out of frame. In order to enter or exit the Toddler swing area you have to go through a gap in the chain link fencing right next to HG’s foot bath.

Sadly also HG was rummaging through some of the bread on the ground that someone had left for the birds and eating it right off the ground.

I called this one in to the 112th Precinct. The most hurried officer in the world answered, mumbled his name so quickly that I couldn’t even understand it, and was about to hang up on me after I wished him a happy Independence Day because I wasn’t getting to the point of the call fast enough for him.  I told him that I wasn’t just calling to wish him a good holiday but that I needed help with something. I reported HG and immediately he knew who I was talking about. “The guy on the bike, yeah I know who he is.”  I specifically asked to have HG ejected from the playground, trying to avoid the “wake-up call” incident from yesterday.  The officer said he would send a car over.

Here is a picture of Captain Thomas Conforti, Commanding officer of the 112th Precinct

No car ever showed up. I did hear a warbly siren which might have been on Yellowstone Blvd but no car appeared on 65th Ave where the playground entrance is, and no officers entered the playground. I wonder if Captain Thomas Conforti would want to know that no car showed up and what he would do to address this problem.