Tompkins Square Park

Tompkins Square Park Review

This leafy spot amid the East Village's crowded tenements is a release valve. The park fills up with locals year-round, partaking in picnics, drum circles, the playground, and two dog runs. The Charlie Parker Jazz Festival, honoring the former park-side resident and noted jazz saxophonist, packs the park in late August, and since 2003 it has been the site of the annual Howl! Festival, which commemorates Allen Ginsberg's famous poem. But it wasn't always so rosy. In 1988 police followed then-mayor David Dinkins's orders to clear the many homeless who had set up makeshift homes here, and homeless rights and anti-gentrification activists fought back with sticks and bottles. The park was reclaimed and reopened in 1992 with a midnight curfew, still in effect today.