Monday, May 9, 2011

Smile for the park cameras!

From the Daily News:

Vandals, drug-dealers and muggers beware: Electronic eyes are watching you.

The Parks Department has mounted about 20 cameras across the city in an effort to thwart after-hours crime. The cameras at city parks detect motion and respond with a blinding flash of light and a booming recorded warning.

"Your picture has been taken for suspicious activity by the NYPD!" the recording bellows.

The Parks Department said the cameras have helped stem after-hours crime in city parks, with the first one going up in Manhattan's Highbridge Park in the spring of 2008. The Fort Tryon camera went up a few months ago.

City officials said the cameras can be moved around to problem locations based on need. They've been at Central Park, Marine Park in Brooklyn, South Beach in Staten Island and Flushing Meadows-Corona Park in Queens - among other sites.

Park managers review the tapes regularly and share them with NYPD precincts for review.

14 comments:

Anonymous said...

I like the idea of cameras in parks - but they need active mgmt - not parkies reviewing tapes?? The cameras should be monitored by desk bound Police Dept employee - put them to work!

Jerry Rotondi said...

"Smile, you're on Candid Camera",
was always a great idea.

Now let's expand upon NYC's TV program offerings.

Isn't it time for all community board public meetings to be put on camera and televised as a deterrent to thwart "criminal activity" amongst their board members?

I define "criminal", for instance,
as continually rubber stamping over-development projects that overload poor or non-existent infrastructure.

It's time for these boards to return to planning for what's best for the communities they're supposed to be representing---instead of plotting against them by aligning themselves with politically connected developers.

There, I've done it again.

Now my own board, CB#7, will be probably be looking daggers at me.

Though I don't know why they would---unless somebody there feels guilty about what I've just said.

Anonymous said...

Big Brother is watching

Joe said...

not parkies reviewing tapes??
_------------------------------
From what I understand the cameras are not on a network.
They retrieve and review the storage chips or solid state drives AFTER somebody's been killed or assaulted.

Why not just kick the criminals, illegals and squatters out of the park in the first place ?
Has anybody been to Flushing Meadow Park on a weekday the morning ?
You have crazy people with push carts shouting at streetlamps & talking to themselves and people passed out & pissed themselves all over the grass and benches.
You need a hazmat mask to breath 100 yards away from some of these people.
The Westinghouse time capsule cement benches are all stained with urine and human excrement.

-Joe

Anonymous said...

Joe is absolutely right on this.

I lieu of good police patrols (which Bloomberg has cut) we get cameras to help solve crimes after the fact instead of preventing them in progress.

Welcome to sanctuary city where the Corona amigos drink their cervezas then pee where they please in FMCP.

Me, I'd carry a machete to feel safe in that place.

Anonymous said...

Hey Jerry,

Why haven't you signed the petition to remove CB7???????

You have a lot of good ideas and make a lot of sense, now lets get our community together to really affect changes.

Anonymous said...

Fix the lighting!

Jerry Rotondi said...

Been there and
done stuff like that about 14 years ago.

I even joined community activist, Joyce Shepard's group ("CACC", the "Citzens' Action Committee For Change") which actively campaigned against community board sluggishness and corruption, back in the day.

It didn't seem to finish the job because we've still got some bad community boards busily working their turf to the developers' advantage.

I don't know what the final solution will be.
Yet, I'm optimistic that the lousy situation can be bettered.

Maybe we don't need community boards at all.

They're only advisory and it looks like most of them are stacked to the ceiling with over development favoring bobble heads!

I think voters need to wise up and make far better choices as to who they put in office.

But remember this---
apathy is the enemy of a republic.

Get involved and stay involved or you lose democracy---step by step!

Georges said...

Why not just kick the criminals, illegals and squatters out of the park in the first place ?
Has anybody been to Flushing Meadow Park on a weekday the morning ?

get the cameras on a wireless network so that police or anyone can monitor for crime. As Jo indicates kick all these criminals out of the park.

Anonymous said...

Central Park has the powerful Central Park Conservancy.

They don't take shit from anyone!

What has FMCP got?

Miss Patricia Dolan, spinster, and her ineffective little group.

THIS LEVEL OF CRIME WOULD NEVER BE TOLERATED ANYWHERE ELSE!

Calling Helen Marshal!
Is your "brain" awake yet?

Anonymous said...

Helen Marshal help out?

LOL...RU kidding?

That dim wit is on every major developer's leash!

She's major-dumb but very good at taking their orders...the perfect burro president for their needs.

She don't care squat about what happens in the park, as long as her retirement nest gets feathered with kickbacks from the Queens real estate industry.

Meanwhile, her vacant smile reveals her vacant cranium!

A wooden post has a higher IQ.

A. Wooden Post said...

A wooden post has a higher IQ.

True Dat!

Anonymous said...

Hey Jerry, don't get duped into signing that petition.

It's sponsored by that self serving Malba group, whose only interest seems to be the creation of their one way street.

Anonymous said...

They should ALSO put cameras in our courtrooms . . . to watch the judges and/or lawyers at "work".