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Summer of smell at Sunset Park: City creates de facto dump at Brooklyn greenspace
By
Liam Quigley
Published Aug 4, 2026
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Liam Quigley / Gothamist
By
Liam Quigley
Published Aug 4, 2026
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The city parks department has turned a stretch of Brooklyn's Sunset Park into a de facto garbage dump in order to handle all the trash collected from the popular green space each weekend.
Locals say the department has used the northern entrance of the park at 41st Street and Sixth Avenue as a staging area for trash bags since the start of the summer. The pile on Monday included tree branches, a mattress, a television and other loose litter. Visitors gripe that inconsistent pickups leave the pile swarming with flies as rats climb from its depths.
“This used to be a nice clear entry to the park, but since they started piling up the bagged garbage, we've seen so much other garbage, and we started to see rats and everything,” said Eric Fretz, who lives down the street from the park.
The pile of trash at Sunset Park often grows so big that locals start dumping their own household garbage there.
Liam Quigley / Gothamist
“They gave them a buffet over here,” said neighbor Jeffrey Calderon, 42, who added that he’d file a 311 complaint about the pile. “I could smell it from across the street. So I would love for Mamdani to just come right here and just stand 10 to 15 feet away, and take a good whiff.”
Parks department spokesperson Gregg McQueen said trash bags throughout the hilly park are taken to the northern entrance for collection, but said people have started dumping their household waste in the pile — which can result in a $5,000 fine.
“Park cleanliness is a top priority, and our staff cleans Sunset Park on a daily basis,” spokesperson Gregg McQueen wrote in a statement. “Please take out what you bring in and dispose of refuse in proper receptacles, and refrain from dumping household trash in our public spaces.”
Liam Quigley / Gothamist
Parks officials said trash is collected from the location daily, and that all city parks will receive sealed trash containers, which will arrive at Sunset Park by the end of 2026.
The parks department operates a fleet of 112 garbage trucks that collect trash from its parks, and in some cases uses public space to store piles of bags before they're collected.
Last summer, parks workers cleaned up a dump and hauled away 15 tons of trash at the agency’s Bronx headquarters after a Gothamist report found the pile had begun stinking up a nearby greenway.
Tagged
brooklyn
new york city
parks
sanitation
Liam Quigley
Liam Quigley is a reporter covering parks & sanitation for Gothamist and WNYC. Got a tip? Email [email protected]
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