Do Not Walk This Way

Apparently, I am bad at walking.

And I'll tell you why.

Several weeks ago, I received a walking ticket from the Environmental Control Board of the City of New York.

I suppose it's less that they did not like how I walked and more that they were not a fan of where and when I was doing it. Returning home from pizza on Houston Street, I crossed through Washington Square Park with a male friend. The park is kind of a mess these days, what with them moving the fountain 6 inches to the left so that it lines up with the arch. Why the city would want to make New York look more like a fake postcard is anybody's guess - but that's a story for another time.

My friend and I walked up LaGuardia Place to the park. As per usual, there were maybe a dozen people milling around. I love Washington Square because it's always a scene - any time of night, any season, any corner of the park. Impromptu street art to organized political rallies, it's representative of New York's cultural climate. (Yeah, I said "cultural climate." I'm a grad student. I can make up phrases.) It was a little past midnight and I was walking home, my friend to the Union Square L train. There were a few police barriers off to the side, but the paths into the park were open. We crossed through the park quickly, chatting quietly, and came out the northwest corner.

We were almost to University Place when a man in a police van called us over. Being the upright citizens that we are, my friend and I headed over to find out what he had to say. As it turns out, there were two cops who wanted to ask us if we knew that we had just crossed through the park, as it was closed (!!!). They claimed that a barrier had been blocking off the pathway we entered. While "blocking off" is somewhat open to interpretation, the barrier that we walked past had been parallel to the grass and pushed to the side. I stated as such, and was accused of "lying to [the policeman's] face." Intimidated by two policemen in a van, I got quiet and my friend got a bit flustered. Unbeknownest to us, as there is no such sign posted on every entrance, Washington Square Park does close at midnight. The time was 12:26 AM and the policemen decided that we had transgressed the law and trespassed through the park.

With that, the policeman (at least, I think he was a policeman. The van said "police," but the tickets we received were from the Environmental Control Board) asked for our IDs. I'm not up on my civilian rights (shame on me), but my friend mentioned that he wasn't sure it was legal to demand identification from citizens in the United States. The policeman said he wasn't interested in having a conversation about the law, he merely wanted to see our driver's licenses. Point taken, we handed them over and both received pink tickets, emblazoned with our driver's license ID numbers. And then they left.

Thus, I am in possession of a ticket for a $50 fine. I can mail in my payment, or appear in court on February 26. I'm planning on paying the ticket, as I don't want any ado when I renew my license in a year's time. But I am considering a few Strongly Worded Letters.

It's so odd - New York City is so safe now, one can walk through the parks in the middle of the night without getting muggged... only to get robbed by the police.