Canine Owners Complain East River Run Is Dogged By Problems

The pavement at one end of the East River Dog Run is layered in pigeon poop. Some dog owners don't use the run out of fear that the filth will sicken their pets. Photo: Carl Glassman/Tribeca Trib

Imagine a dog park not fit for a dog. That’s how some Seaport area pet owners feel about the dog run under the FDR Drive at Pine and South Streets. 

Area dog owners, most of whom avoid the 4,300-square-foot run, complain that the park and the surrounding area is rat-infested, covered in pigeon poop, and used by unhoused people who make themselves at home around, and sometimes inside, the park. On several recent visits to the dog run, the Trib found layers upon layers of pigeon excrement in parts of the area. Pigeons perched above continued to add to the collection.

At a meeting of Community Board 1’s Waterfront, Parks & Cultural Committee last month, Financial District resident Bobby Halkitis, owner of four French bulldogs, said he reached out to the board after calls to 311 about the unsanitary conditions proved fruitless.

“There is no hose working there. I was told it’s not turned on because the homeless people were using it,” Halkitis told the committee. “They don’t lock the park at night, so anybody can get in. [Dog owners] are not bringing their dogs there, because it's just filthy. It's loud, it's noisy, the pigeon droppings…I mean, the bigger issue is that we need another dog run down here.”

At Pier 17,  just outside the Tin Building, a spot that attracts a year-round crew of canines and their owners morning and night, rain or shine, people interviewed agreed with Halkitis. They say there is a growing disconnect between FiDi’s rapid residential growth and its lack of pet-friendly infrastructure. And there is frustration that one of the only dog parks in the neighborhood is virtually unusable.

“It’s gross,” said Kristen Kriisa, owner of a golden retriever named Semla. “It’s covered in pigeon poop, which I’m pretty sure is disease central, I don’t know, it just feels dark and sketchy. We tried to go there twice, maybe, and left. It’s just filthy.”

Alex Cano checked the park out with her now 11-year-old rescue, Faye, after moving from Miami. “It didn't seem safe. There were just a lot of people in there without dogs, pretty much. And I didn't feel comfortable, so I just never went.”

Nadir Ahmed has a four-year-old Coton de Tulear named Cotton, whose fur is white. “Whenever he used to go there, his paws would turn black. They would never clean it.”

The dog run, formerly called The South Street Seaport Dog Park, but sometimes referred to as the East River Dog Run, opened in 2011. Very soon, dogs who went there reportedly started getting sick. (The source was apparently a pool that some canines were using as a toilet, and others were using as a water bowl.) According to a 2012 DNAInfo article, the city’s Economic Development Corp., which built the park, responded by sending workers to power-wash the run twice a day. But when EDC turned it over to the Parks Department about a year after it opened, the dog run slid into a state of neglect.

Martha, a longtime Seaport area resident and owner of Leo, a 13-year-old Pomeranian, remembers when the park first opened. “It was the number 1 primo spot for area dog owners,” recalled Martha, who declined to give her last name. “Once the homeless people moved in, it really affected [the place]—like they would take showers there and sleep there—and it just went downhill ever since that. And it’s been years. Also, the Parks Department just stopped cleaning it. Why, I don’t know.”

She believes the park is well built, and convenient when it’s raining. But she still won’t take her dog there. “Honestly, every dog ends up getting sick. And a lot of dogs end up getting in fights. Big fights, prison yard fights.”

On a recent chilly afternoon, there was one lone dog inside: Murray, a 7-year-old terrier mix. He was with his owner, Caroline Kinsella, who says she used to be a fan of this park, which she found to be “a little dirty, but nothing crazy.” But then, about a year ago, things changed. “I just feel like there were people sleeping in there and there was like paraphernalia and garbage. And so I just said I’m not bringing him.”

But then in mid-April she started seeing police doing sweeps to get the homeless out of the park, “and I was like, it looks clean enough, you know, let’s let him run a little bit.”

In a statement to the Trib, a Parks Department spokesman said that Parks staff “cleans the dog run once a day, and we remind dog owners to clean up after their pets.” In a follow-up conversation, the spokesperson said that powerwashing the dog run is not the job of the Parks Department, adding that it is up to the users of the run to organize their own maintenance of the space.

Even if the run were kept clean, some dog owners have lost enthusiasm—and hope—for the space.

“I just don’t see it being revivable, to be honest,” said Emme Donne, owner of a two-year-old black lab mix named Appa.  And, she added, she likes the feeling of community with other dog owners at Pier 17.

Semla’s owner, Kristen Kriisa, said she might go back, “but I would have to understand the Parks Department’s plan to eradicate the pigeon poop and the rats.”

As for Alex Cano, she says she’d give it a shot—if there were a commitment to keep it clean. “I would go because I live like two minutes away from it.”

One person who definitely hopes for a return to the South Street Seaport Dog Park is Bobby Halkitis, who brought the issue to CB1 in the first place. “Any other dog run in this city,” he told the board, “someone is there cleaning it. They close it down, and they're spotless. Except for this one."