Sunset Park Caretakers clean the park, one trash bag at a time

On a Saturday morning in August, long-time Sunset Park resident Jason Hyde arrived at the triangle garden near 41st Street and Seventh Avenue with two buckets, a few trash pickers, a handful of large trash bags, and plenty of enthusiasm.

He waited for volunteers to arrive. As people slowly trickled in, he greeted them and handed out equipment.

Having lived in the neighborhood for more than two decades, Hyde said the park is deeply loved by the community. But for a long time, he felt frustrated by the litter.

“I was like, ‘Why be frustrated? Why not just do something?’” he said.

After watching volunteers from the Parent-Child Relationship Association clean up every Sunday, Hyde realized the park needed daily attention. Working with park representatives, he launched Sunset Park Caretakers.

“At first it was my wife and I,” Hyde recalled. “Then I asked some people at the dog park if they wanted to be on a text thread for trash pickups, and some of them joined. It's grown over time. People see us out, they're curious, and they want to join.”

Michelle Giambo, a local resident, joined the Saturday morning crew. Within minutes, her bag filled with water and beer bottle caps, balloons, and plastic fragments. Along her route, she spotted a household rug that had been dumped next to a park trash can.

“This is odd, but I feel these kinds of things happen a lot,” Giambo lamented.

Beyond picking up litter, volunteers collaborated with a Parks-appointed gardener, whom the group described as the first dedicated gardener assigned to the park after years without one. Together, they cleared overgrowth, added gravel, and planted new vegetation in the triangle garden.

Now, Giambo hopes to tackle another problem area: the entrance at 44th Street and Sixth Avenue, where the Parks Department previously staged bagged garbage. Though the agency moved the pile to 41st Street, the damage remains.

“They moved it, but all the vegetation is dead,” Giambo said. “I hope we can restore the vegetation and maybe make a native plant garden there.”

The relocation of the trash staging ground has done little to appease residents. This summer, rats were spotted climbing through towering piles of garbage and organic waste. The stench from the dump drove visitors away. On September 8, the pile caught fire after a lithium-ion battery exploded.

Rodrigo Camarena, another volunteer, criticized the city's response.

“The community has complained, especially around the entrance at 44th Street and Sixth Avenue, and their solution was seemingly to just move it to 41st Street, which is not a real solution,” Camarena said. “We need the higher-ups at the Parks Department to really pay attention to this community.”

In response, Camarena and other volunteers launched a petition urging the city to prioritize Sunset Park for trash containerization, a strategy that has already been tested in select parks in Brooklyn and Manhattan. The petition also demands better bins and the mapping of illegal dumping hotspots.

“With this petition, we're trying to bring action in a real response to a longstanding problem,” Camarena said.

The group believes long-term success requires community involvement.

“We hope to work with schools and young people in the community to get them involved in raising attention to these issues and educate and inform community members around what the proper way of disposing trash,” Camarena said.

The Sunset Park Caretakers meet every Saturday at 9 a.m. at the triangle garden near 41st Street and Seventh Avenue. Residents can sign the sanitation petition at https://bit.ly/keep-sunset-clean.