September 2, 2007 8:36 am

Norwalk: Ryan Park

The Hour ran a profile on Ryan Park, the distressed urban park in SoNo. The good news; two homeless shleter residents have cleaned the park due to the encouragement of community policing Sgt. Paul Vinett. The bad news; the part missing about who exactly is trashing the park.

Ryan Park is a known drug haven. The drug dealers stretch out onto Woodward ave and can be seen most nights, only a few blocks from the police station hanging out the street waiting for cars to slow down and roll down their windows.

In reading the article where Mike Mocciae claims 3,4 or 5 mattresses a night arrive at the park, I wonder where do all these mattresses come from? It’s not as if you see people hauling mattresses in shopping carts up and down Water or Woodward ave all day.

It seems odd that you can have an entire article about the park, and not mention the real problem that the park has. Putting scheduled events there is not going to solve the drug problem.
source: The Hour, Duo takes trashiness out of local park, By Noelle Frampton, September 2, 2007

Mr Greenpeace

I think your all missing the point , the problem was trucks and now a peeping Tom, why bitch about South Norwalk and its problems we have better things to focus on than a stupid park these people don’t vote , the mattresses are coming from displaced residents because of tank farms and industrial parks and Mike ,,Mikey will eat anything so he figures he can feed us the BS and we will all eat it to.

You people are always coomplaining about South Norwalk like its the only place in the city that has problems try and looking at the other parts of the city for a change and stop trying to blame Rillings and his over staffed force and while your at it leave the Mayor alone their not responsibe for the condition of this part of the city,,its the people who live there blame them for the crime drugs prostitution the pollution from meadow street and the projects well lets blame the residents themselves they don’t do anything to help themselves they just sit there and let this all happen and take services away from the good people who live in the nice houses in the city shame on them move to Bridgeport where Mayor Fabrizi cares about this blight, crime , disadvantaged and elders.

The city has provided a shooting range in the middle of the city , anyone know how hard it is to find someplace in a city to discharge a weapon? I guess not by the attitude of others,we should be thanking city officials

Anyone have any idea how hard it is for our youth to leave this area and buy drugs,?

the Ice cream man can afford a bullet proof vest why can’t the city just issue them the post men and the news delivery people have become good in driving through the area at high speed throwing there morning editions, talking on your cell phones and blowing stop signs are a everyday occurance this is not an area where any one should care about so please lets focus on the Oyster fest and Vets park and the positive things this city offers peolple who count ,,who cares about Ryan park and the surrounding area it didn’t get this way over night, start thinking about elections, Morris and the mueseum and how the schools are being run and leave the driving to us.

Cars drove by school busses more than once this week in south norwalk while the lights were on if we are lucky any future gang members will buy it on the way to school that in return will help Corda out,not one cruiser for about 30 bus stops in the area this week a broken promise I say

between the two papers about 30 photographers and not one shot of dangerous stops timing was everything boys

we all should be pleased the homeless shelter when not being helped by GE are producing workers for our parks program, the youth are all busy working the fest soon , you know that worthhile event giving the theives something else to prey upon why diminish the good things that are happening around the city becuase the news decides its a story, by all people who picks on our dedicated dept heads.

Don’t give any credit to the police union or the officers Matt whats his name wrote about in the Advocate a while back those guys got a thankyou once this year simply forget the efforts of good cops on the street , might mean we have to do something nice for them take away for the fact we have good cops at all.

how am I doing Dick?

so lest see a drug problem let them sell drugs in oyster park kill two problems at once use a the park without testing and kill off the drug problems,,and the new skating rink they want for South Norwalk well wrong kind of ice people..

enough i want to hear about this guy Corda and his gang they seem to ride around town flying colors without any fear of a confrontation…

anyone know the colors here in South Norwalk,,if you don’t its pathetic you don’t the area lives on colors, not knowing this or reporting this as we would of expected any good reporting would do , look at out news hounds people see what they write about from their desk see where the stories all go once reported,,

I don’t blame the reporters but where have you ever seen decent hard hitting factual reports get revisited ,,or revisited by the same reporter, the papers need to have a plan and give back to the community, hell most of the time Sundays paper is sold out , the local outlets never get enough sold out by lunch fo those who pick them up,Rite aid on East ave sells out of the Advocate hours before closing time, the same with Moble farther down the street,,see its not just how news is covered but its how news is distributed,,I’m sure the outlet to schools and to the homeless shelter would be better than how they dispose papers not sold if they have any, one place simply rips the front page off for credit and throws the rest out no recycle just waste the entire paper.

ok back to south norwalk who cares!
http://www.MGeake.org MGeake

Mr Greenpeace, I care about South Norwalk, my home.

It’s truly sad that we got a lot of finger pointing in the article. It’s sad that the Memorial Day event we tried to run in the park failed for lack of support (except for Doug Hempstead, who got us a grant from Stew Leonards for food).

As for our open-air drug market, a large part of the problem is that they post lookouts at Day & South Main, so it’s impossible for the police to catch them at anything — Joe Mann does try; you can see it all from his office in NEON. A fairly simple solution: every cop has a certain amount oif paperwork that needs to be done. Let them do it in their car, parked on Day Street right next to the park. If that doesn’t discourage the dealers, it definitely will scare off the buyers. As the dealers move, so can the paperwork — Lord knows we have enough cops and cars to do this multiple locations at once.
Anonymous

Has anyone thought about installing video cameras at the problem spots? Easy way to ID the perps, bust em, and make it known those areas are under surveillance. If they move to a different area, install cameras there. Duh. If it can be done at Calf Pasture to prevent graffiti, then why not in South Norwalk? Makes too much sense?

If so, perhaps letting the property developers have free reign there would do the trick…
http://www.MGeake.org MGeake

You had me ’til that last paragraph
Anonymous

Consider it sarcasm… seems the only way the city knows to “improve” areas is by developing them.
just a thought

#3-Installing camera’s at the problem spots. When this was first brought to light residents came out opposed to the idea because it infringed on their privacy. They didn’t want Big Brother watching them. My thought is if you’re doing nothing wrong then you shouldn’t have to worry. If you are standing on a street corner or in a park then guess what? It’s a public place and you should expect people to look at you. If you are walking down the street you should expect that someone will see you. If you are not in your home then people will see you. So what is the problem here? Are we afraid someone will see a drug deal or a shooting or vandalism in the works? Too bad! That’s the reason for the camera’s, to make Norwalk safe. If you are afraid of being seen you might want to go home and pull the blinds and call for take out. Oh wait, be careful the delivery guy will see you. Come on, the citizens of this city need to demand that the camera surveilance is stepped up a notch and start getting rid of those who can harm our kids and destroy our neighborhoods.
Mr Greenpeace

I guess one only sees from an office during the day,,the area takes on another animal at night. We are seeing more things happening on the outskirts of Day st that tells us trouble is brewing.

Prostitution, and drugs,(RED) vans from Florida dropping off people,,the registrations are being taken, the cab companies are pruducing Johns,,please understand there are not enough police in the area ,,they are not out in force at night,,day is when the crime festers, breeds ,,and sleeps,,as soon as the sun goes down it comes out,,

I would suggest keep to what one knows and make improvements in the city but when it comes to whats happeing in South Norwlalk lets leave it to experts,,experts outside of Norwalk ,,we had our chance to step up to the plate and support the police dept,,we turned our backs to the men and woman who make a diference and sided with the chief.Its election time its promotion time its not protecting the city with more police time.

All I heard was we can’t hire becuase of retirement packages and budget retstraint so the door was open to the unseen crime,,its growing its obvious at least to the residents..I’m sorry a day in the trenches does not warrant anyone offering a solution, years of living here you learn something every day,,this process does not stop ask any street officer not a desk one.

open the portable station on Woodward ave, Meadow, Day , concord and other places outside of the view of NEON there is yet another world you need to see,,maybe the chief could find the portable station as well..

thanks for the invite,,as you know once a Kennedy man always a Kennedy man we may not agree but I’ll talk to you anyway..
disgustednorwalker

Drug dealing, prostitution and crime in general has been a problem in South Norwalk for decades. When SONO was developed with high end lofts, botiqus and restaurants it was thought that would alleviate the problem. It didn’t. The problems moved up the street. Then it was thought that building the police station in the middle of the area would solve the problems – that didn’t work either – they moved to the side streets and even further up the block. When out of towners tell me they are going to dinner in SONO, I caution them not to travel out of the main district. I, for one, avoid South Norwalk at night period.
Cameras and bright lights might help to stop the trashing of Ryan Park, but it is going to take much more than that to get rid of the drug dealiers. As long as there are “clients” willing to patronize these dealers, it will continue. If we keep moving them further up (or down) the street they will end up in Rowayton and then, maybe, something will get done.
tell it like it is

no one ever mentions the park on Woodward ave, that has seen an increase in drug activity all summer,,does anyone know what park on Woodward ave I am talking about?

probably not!

I know the police knows its there but what can they do they don’t have the manpower folks..

There will be a new story soon on a new house involved in all kinds of stuff, William Ravis is selling a home that will be in the news soon,,what is the hotline number to the Norwalk police anyone have it?