Park Goers To Mayor: Limit Yourself

BROOKLYN, NEW YORK — A vague comment by Mayor Bill de Blasio about potentially limiting access to city parks to prevent overcrowding quickly sparked a very specific counterplan: a one-man ban on Hizzoner's controversial trips to Prospect Park.

De Blasio on Thursday said a handful of unspecified city parks have configurations that lend themselves to overcrowding. City officials will have "more to say" about the issue on Friday, he said.

"We can't let that happen and we have to limit the number of people going in," he said."And we'll, again, we'll talk about how we're going to do that. And it's not that many places honestly, but wherever that is the case, we're going to work with a protocol to do that."

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Within minutes, Twitter users turned their attention on de Blasio's own park habits. He regularly takes a city escort roughly 10 miles from Gracie Mansion to Prospect Park, which has replaced the coronavirus-shuttered Park Slope YMCA as his favored workout spot.

Just as critics decried de Blasio's Y visits, his Prospect Park jaunts have attracted criticism. One critic heckled the mayor and distributed a video online.

"This is the epitome of non-essential travel," the heckler told the mayor, along with other pointed criticisms.

Crowds seen congregating on Prospect Park's field have regularly attracted social distancing criticism. Some have pointed out that mostly-white park goers citywide literally get handed protective masks by NYPD officers while people of color face harsh crackdowns by cops.

Twitter user Doug Gordon, co-host of The War On Cars podcast, leapt on de Blasio's park limitations comments as poorly conceived from the get-go.

"Even just saying 'Hmm, maybe we should limit entry to parks' out loud will lead to increased harassment of vulnerable communities," he wrote. "Because we all know the cops won't be standing at the entrance to Prospect Park stopping people like me from getting in."

New York Times reporter Michael Grynbaum anticipated a potential backlash.

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