Chelsea dog owners bark about Waterside Park dog run

Volume 1, Number 33 | The Weekly Newspaper of Chelsea | May 4 - 10, 2007

Chelsea Now photo by Jefferson Siegel
Dog run proponents at last Thursday’s annual meeting of the Chelsea Waterside Park Association huddle by a staircase outside the proceedings with Noreen Doyle, executive vice president of Hudson River Park Trust (top).

The scene at the Chelsea Waterside Park dog run earlier this week. (bottom)

By Julie Shapiro

Last Thursday, 13 dog owners backed Noreen Doyle into a corner—literally.

Doyle, executive vice president of the Hudson River Park Trust, was a guest speaker at the Chelsea Waterside Park Association’s annual meeting, held at St. Paul’s German Lutheran Church, on W. 22nd St. But the meeting had barely begun when dog owners started questioning Doyle about the park’s dog run, which they say is inadequate at best and deadly at worst.

Wanting to stick to the meeting’s agenda, outgoing C.W.P.A. President Bob Trentlyon requested that the dog owners move into the church’s foyer to continue their discussion. In the dimly lit stairwell, the dog owners surrounded Doyle, interrupting one another and voicing their complaints while she took notes.

“The whole problem is that we have the highest population of dogs in the city and we have the smallest dog park,” August Costa said. Costa, who owns a Doberman-greyhound mix named Billie, wants to see the dog park expanded into an adjacent grassy area.

The dog park, at W. 23rd St. and Eleventh Ave., is not just overcrowded, the dog owners said. Dogs jump over the fences into the rushing traffic of the West Side Highway, where they are injured or killed. Recently, a log that serves as a dog balance beam has begun to rot, allegedly poisoning the dogs that chew its bark. Other dog owners dislike the park’s water stream or want large and small dogs to be separated.

Doyle listened to the concerns for more than half an hour, and promised to take action soon. The Hudson River Park Trust—and not Chelsea Waterside Park Association—is charged with the park’s upkeep, Doyle said. Some problems, like the decaying log, Doyle intends to fix within the week. Others, like the size of the dog park, will take time and consensus-building, she said.

Doyle then encouraged the attendees to organize, so that they represent the majority of dog owners who use the dog run. Costa took charge of the group, collecting e-mail addresses and planning a meeting of dog owners to do a walk-through of the park and decide on the main issues. The dog park “is the red-headed step-child of all the dog parks in New York,” Costa said. “It’s ignored and abused.” Doyle has not heard from Costa or other dog owners since the meeting, she said.

The roughly triangle-shaped park contains benches that dot the perimeter, which is composed of a 4-foot-high steel fence and 3-foot 9-inch-high concrete wall. Three concrete mounds, embedded with boulders, cover the center of the park.

For Tina Rossner, problems with the dog run are literally a matter of life or death. On April 3, her Scottish terrier, Forbes, got sick in the dog run.

“He just went berserk,” Rossner said. “He was running in loopy circles, twisting his head to the right, his back legs going wobbly. He just really scared us all.”

Rossner and a friend carried Forbes to the nearby West Chelsea Veterinary Hospital, where Forbes checked in with a 106-degree temperature, Rossner said. The veterinarians brought his temperature down to 102 degrees and sent Forbes and Rossner uptown to another veterinary clinic.

“We don’t know what made him sick, but it was definitely in the dog run,” Rossner said.

Another dog from the dog run checked into West Chelsea Veterinary several days before Forbes with the same symptoms. That dog died, Rossner said. The dog was seen licking something in the run.

Other dog owners said their dogs got diarrhea after chewing the bark of the decaying log in the dog run. The log was coated with a plastic material to weatherproof it, but now has termites and nails sticking out of it, they said.

The Hudson River Park Trust investigated the cause of the dog’s death. “We did an absolutely top-to-bottom review,” Doyle said. “We couldn’t find anything.” There has been no recent changes in the products used to clean the dog run, she said.

Many dog owners also recalled seeing dogs jump the fences and barriers that separate the dog run from West Side Highway and the rest of Chelsea Waterside Park. These dogs are often hit by cars and are injured or killed. Other dog owners have seen dogs fall off of the log—which is suspended between two of the concrete mounds—and injure their legs.

West Chelsea Veterinary Hospital confirmed treating dogs that were injured because of the dog run.

Another common complaint is that owners of small dogs cannot watch their dogs when they go behind one of the concrete mounds. Dvorah Stoll, a longtime dog activist, stopped going to the dog park because of the mounds.

However, Sandy Franck and Randall White, who frequent the park several times a week with their giant schnauzer, Poppy, like the mounds.

“[The dog park] is the only one with different levels and surfaces,” White said on a recent morning in the park. “She likes it—it’s fun for dogs to have something different.”

Meanwhile, Tania Rivera highlighted another problem that small-dog owners face. Rivera sat on a bench in the dog park with four dogs—Chihuahuas and Chihuahua mixes—clinging to her: two on her lap, one on her shoulder and one wrapped around her ankles. Whenever another dog approached, the Chihuahuas growled in unison.

“They’re intimidated by the big ones,” Rivera said. “I wish they could separate the large and small dogs. Then they would not be on top of me all the time.”

Several dog owners are angry that the park’s water stream has not yet been turned on for the season. In addition, Jill Apple, who brings her Boston terrier, Otis, to the park, dislikes the structure of the fountain. In the summer, water flows from a pipe, then runs several feet along a small brick stream, then empties into a drain. “It’s an environmental waste,” Apple said. Finally, dogs urinate in the stream as other dogs lap up the water, an unhealthy situation that gave Otis a parasite, Apple said.

Apple still appreciates the dog park, however. “Beggars can’t be choosers,” she said. “There can always be improvements, but overall it’s one of the best in the city.”

Trentlyon also focuses on the positives. “The dogs seem to be having a good time,” he said. “Who are we for, really? Are we interested in what the dogs want or what the owners want? I’m for the dogs.”

Stoll, a 30-year Chelsea resident who is often at odds with Trentlyon, is also for the dogs. She was among the neighborhood residents who created the area’s first dog run in 1994 at what was then called Thomas Smith Park, at W. 22nd St. and Eleventh Ave.

“Thirteen years ago, that park was a dump,” Stoll said. “The police used to go around at 6 a.m. to make sure there were no dead bodies.”

Dog owners cleaned up the park, and the city pitched in a 6-foot fence and several benches, Stoll said. She and other dog owners were satisfied, until the new Chelsea Waterside Park plan came along about 10 years ago. “The minute we saw the groundwork, we started complaining,” Stoll said. She calls the dog run “disgraceful” and “an abomination.”

Tom Balsley, the park architect who won an American Society of Landscape Architects design award for Chelsea Waterside Park, is proud of his design and brings his black lab there to play.

Balsley, who hand-picked the boulders and log from the Catskills, wanted to create a dog run that defied the typical flat, fenced rectangle. “I wanted to add a little more interesting topography for the dog’s experience, and make it a little more interesting for dog owners to look at,” he said.

For her part, Stoll said she was promised that the new dog run would be as big as the old one, and that it would have six-foot fences, though none of the promises came to fruition.

Balsley did not decide the park’s size, and during the design phase, he met with two dog owners to consider their feedback, he said. “I didn’t hear anybody promise a six-foot fence,” Balsley said. Balsley designed 4-foot fences, in accordance with Parks Department policy. “The only time I ever heard of 6-foot fences is from [Stoll],” Balsley said.

Stoll brought her concerns to Trentlyon and the C.W.P.A., but “it’s like talking to the deaf,” she said. “They all think it’s a joke.” Stoll ran for the association’s board, but told Chelsea Now, “I’m constantly closed out and am put down when I bring up the dog run.”

After last Thursday’s meeting, Trentlyon responded, “If she [Stoll] came to me, it was with the same complaints she had 20 years ago. It wasn’t like she was saying anything different.”

Stoll used last week’s meeting to voice her complaints about the C.W.P.A. to Trentlyon. “The Chelsea Waterside Park Association is the best-kept secret,” she said. “There was not one flyer up about this meeting.” Gesturing to the gray-haired crowd of C.W.P.A. members, she said, “Is this a representation of the people that live in Chelsea now?”

Trentlyon responded that he advertised the meeting to C.W.P.A. members and sent an invitation to block associations. He also put up flyers, but “we did not put up enough,” he said. “It’s not like it’s a closed organization. Anyone can join it.”

Dog owners found out about the meeting from signs Stoll posted at the dog run; before seeing Stoll’s signs, several attendees had never heard of the C.W.P.A. The signs say “Want a Better Dog Park? Bigger? Cleaner?” On one sign, someone modified the wording to read: “We have the Better Dog Park already.”

Several other dog owners felt the same way as they watched their dogs scamper over and around the dog park’s concrete mounds on a recent morning.

“It’s the best park around and the cleanest,” said Marcelino Gonzalez, who comes to the park every day with Bruno, his English bulldog. The concrete surface is easier to clean than gravel or woodchips, and consequently the park smells better than the dog run at Union Square Park, he said.

Even on a crowded day, Gonzalez’s friend Jessica Phillips said, “it’s a place where everybody knows your name.”

“No,” Gonzalez interrupted. “Everyone knows your dog’s name.”