One Brooklyn Bridge Park's Poop Problem

So here’s a little nice little story to go with your morning coffee. You know One Brooklyn Bridge Park? That big condominium complex in an old printing factory between Pier 5 and Pier 6 in Brooklyn Bridge Park? Where a two-bedroom apartment costs about $2,500,000?

Hallways full of poop.

According to the New York Times, there are around 175 dogs that live in the building, and dog feces is a persistent problem. An incident report for December tallied up 52 occurrences:

…a mix of diarrhea, feces, urine and vomit: found on virtually every floor including the main lobby and north and south lobbies; found in all five elevators and with the staff cleanup time ranging from 10 to 50 minutes (average time roughly 20 minutes) per incident.

Dog owners in the city know what it’s like to dread walking their dogs in a hurricane or a blizzard.

But you know what rarely occurs to them? Letting their poodles puddle in the hallway!

Prospect Park — for example — is ringed with buildings full of dogs. But we’ve never heard of a situation getting this far out of hand, where more than one or two dogs (or owners) are causing a problem.

At One Brooklyn Bridge Park, however, it was basically a daily occurrence. They got to the point where all the dogs have to be registered and DNA-tested, so the stealth defecators’ owners could be fined.

Some of the dog owners protested, imagining extreme (and extremely paranoid) situations where their dogs would be framed by neighbors who didn’t like them. But the plan went through and some of the perpetrators have been busted.

Yes, this is the same building where some owners are speaking out against affordable housing plans for the Pier 6 towers to be built next door.

Using DNA to Fight Dog Owners’ Discourtesy in Brooklyn [NY Times]