Memorial Park Bathrooms 'Filthy,' See New Hours

The restrooms in Memorial Park have become unmanageably disgusting, village officials are saying, and have new hours as a result.

Village administrator Jim Politi said people use the bathrooms late at night and early in the morning. The issue, he said, are the “very disgusting” messes left behind—the stalls need to be completely sprayed down afterward.

“The level of filth is beyond belief,” said Nyack Mayor Jen Laird-White.

As a solution, Nyack lawmakers discussed adding two additional lights in Memorial Park, and have changed the hours of the bathrooms at the park.

About a week ago, local officials swapped the hours of operation for the bathrooms to 10 a.m. through about 6 p.m. The bathroom is locked up by parking authority workers in the evening.

Previously, the bathrooms were opened at 7 a.m. for cleaning and left open after that. They were closed at about 10 p.m., when the park shuts down.

“We think it was those late hours and early hours,” Politi said. “We used to get a lot of calls in the morning from people who said the bathrooms were too gross for people to take their children into. We haven’t had any of those calls since changing the hours. It’s only been a week, [though], not a big sample size.”

Trustee Louise Parker raised the issue that since the park is open until 10 p.m., closing the bathrooms a little after 6 p.m. might be too early, as there’s still a few hours of sunlight and families might be at the park. She said perhaps they can change the hours once it starts getting darker earlier in another couple of months.

All the board members agreed with her point, but Politi said that since the , there’s no one on duty after 6 p.m. anymore—and having someone stay on would be overtime.

Another issue with the bathrooms is there has been repeated damage to certain items, including broken faucets and the water fountain outside of the bathroom.

One thing Politi suggested doing is adding two lights at the bottom of the stairs at the park, as he said the police department suggested added light might help keep unwanted visitors to the park out after hours.

The village owns the two light poles and lights that would go there already, Politi said, so they would only have to pay for the installation of them. They would have to run the wires down from the top of the stairs, where there is another light, to the new light poles. Politi said the price could be about $4,000 for the labor and the village will save between $4,000 and 5,000 by already owning the poles and lights.

The board approved him to go out and seek prices for the installation of the lights.