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City Parks Worker 'Humiliated And Degraded' After Being Forced To Scrub Dog Poop Off Artist's Shoe

Jen Chung

Published Oct 14, 2016

Modified Oct 14, 2016

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Jen Chung

Published Oct 14, 2016

Modified Oct 14, 2016

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A parks worker at the Manhattan park where Gracie Mansion sits has accused her supervisors of forcing her to wipe and scrub dog feces from an artist's shoe. Tasheema Chatman told A Walk in the Park, "I felt completely humiliated and degraded. My reaction was, 'Why I’m I cleaning the poop off of someone’s shoe. This is crazy, I can’t believe I’m cleaning someone else's shoes. I know this is not in my job specs that’s what was going through my mind."

The incident occurred at the Gracie Square Art Show in Carl Schurz Park earlier this month. Chatman claims her supervisor John Heimerle called her "to come over to booth 75 because there was poop in the area."

She came from several blocks away with a bucket and toilet brush and fresh cleaning solution. When she arrived she asked them were the poop was. “When I get there there was no poop on the ground,” she said.

She said the artist commented, ‘I asked your supervisor to come over here because I have poop on my shoe,’” he reportedly said.

The artist said, ‘I need your to help me clean the poop off of my shoe.’”

He said, “can you help me scrub it,” which meant can you do it for me, she explained.

She said she knelt down before the artist. He took off one his black, European-bought shoes and held it up. She proceeded to scrub the bottom of the sole with a toilet brush with the cleaning solution.

She walked away when she said the artist began to take off his other shoe to check to see if there was dog crap on the other one. “He took off his other shoe to smell it to see if there was poop on that shoe for me to clean that one too, ” she said.

Chatman said that she walked away because she was so upset and went to a bathroom to break down. She later told her supervisors, Heimerle and Steven Digiovanni, that she felt extremely demeaned, "I didn’t feel like I had a choice (not to do it) because John’s supervisor was standing right there, so I felt like I had to do it like it was a direct order...I was afraid I would get written up."

Christos Palios, the artist whose shoe she cleaned, said that he was told that the park had people to deal with dog crap. In an interview with A Walk in the Park, Palios insisted that Chatman was very accommodating and willing, though he did feel a little uncomfortable during the encounter.

"What bothers me universally is that she had a choice just to say no, no, no," Palios said. "I mean I didn't order her, I asked her actually a couple of times, I said are you sure, and I just thought she had helped someone else with it or, or it was no big deal... It was just, 'two people helping each other.'"

However, that comes as a surprise to Chatman, who says Palios "asked me could I do it. No, he didn’t suggest 'could he do it' because I would have liked for him to clean his own shoes. I mean I wouldn’t even be here." She also told the Post, "[Pallos] had this cocky, arrogant demeanor to himself, like this was a regular thing for him."

Chatman is disappointed in how her supervisors handled the situation, "I would thought that having a black commissioner, us having a mayor with a black wife a lot of things would have changed in parks but it hasn’t. Everything is still the same. Their views of minorities working in the Parks Department haven’t changed they still treat us the same way."

The Parks Department said, "NYC Parks’ investigation has already included interviews with all parties involved, including Ms. Chatman. Ms. Chatman filed a request to be moved to another district, which has been met." We've also contacted the Gracie Square Art Show and Carl Schurz Park Conservancy for comment.

Palios deflected the blame onto the broader issue of dog curbing in NYC: "New Yorkers don’t clean up their dog poo."

Tagged

carl schurz park

christos palios

gracie square art show

tasheema chatman

Jen Chung

Jen Chung is a former WNYC and Gothamist editor.

Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations

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