By Deirdre Carmody, New York Times, April 18, 1984
Someone trying to report a crime in Central Park has a one-in-four chance of finding a working telephone call box there, according to a study being prepared for the Parks and Police Departments on security in Central Park.
The park’s 54 call boxes were each checked three times during a two-week period. Not one worked every time, according to the report.
The report also contains sweeping recommendations for changing the ways the park is patrolled, including a proposal to remove the park from the 911 emergency system. It suggests that the Central Park precinct station house, which is in the park on the 86th Street transverse, handle all park emergencies directly.
There are now only four park telephone boxes that are directly linked to 911. The others are linked directly to the Central Park precinct station house. However, when the precinct receives an emergency call from one of the 54 call boxes, it must, in turn, call 911 for the assignment of the most readily available police car. Except in matters of extreme emergency, the precinct cannot directly assign patrol cars.
Meeting on Findings Scheduled
Police Commissioner Benjamin Ward and Parks Commissioner Henry J. Stern are scheduled to meet April 24 to discuss the report’s findings.
The report was commissioned by the Central Park Conservancy, a private group that raises funds for the park, for use by the Parks and the Police Departments. It is being prepared by Thomas and Julia Vitullo-Martin, consultants, These are among the other recommendations:
– A mounted police unit be restored to Central Park.
– Seventy-five new radio call boxes replace the 54 telephone boxes that are now in the park.
– The dilapidated Central Park station house, which was designed in 1874 by Calvert Vaux, co-designer of Central Park, be rehabilitated. This would include refurbishing the original stables so that they could once again house a mounted unit.
Inspector Richard Koehler, commanding officer of the Police Department’s Office of Management Analysis and Planning, said the department welcomed the study and was ”very interested in improving conditions in Central Park.”
