There are a lot of elements that come together to make Washington Square Park the iconic space we know and love: the monuments, the horticulture, the culture. But at the end of the day it’s the people that keep WSP alive and thriving, particularly the Park’s staff. They move, like lifeblood, through the pathways — fixing what’s broken, cleaning what’s needed, and constantly working hard to make the space enjoyable for us all. 

Flash backwards 10 years ago to 2012, when the Washington Square Park Conservancy was first forming, and the staffing situation at the Park looked significantly different than it does today. There was a single gardener, responsible for not just WSP but every park in NYC Parks District 2. The maintenance crew was focused mostly on the daytime hours, with little staff past 5pm, when the Park is at its busiest.  

It’s a bit of a dance to figure out what new positions to support, requiring coordination between the Park Administrator—who traditionally serves a dual role as the Conservancy’s Executive Director—and WSPC. It’s important that the new positions not only benefit the Park, but fit with the Conservancy’s goals. Together with the Administrator, WSPC chooses which new staff lines are needed to improve specific areas of the Park, such as gardeners to support efforts to improve the landscapes, maintenance workers to raise the standard of cleanliness at the Park, and community-focused staff to augment the experience of Park goers. The goal isn’t to replace the staff that NYC Parks provides, but to enhance the team and fill gaps in staffing resources when they’re identified.

After nearly 10-years of work to build up the team, WSPC now funds five full-time employees who work in the Park year-round alongside the staff that NYC Parks provides. That roster consists of two gardeners dedicated solely to WSP, two full-time maintenance workers to tend to the restrooms and assist with general Park clean up, and a playground associate who maintains the playspaces and coordinates activities for children. In less than a decade, WSPC has gone from providing NYC Parks with a $5,000 grant for staffing in 2013, to a $335,794 in 2021, that’s over a 6000% increase! Before the pandemic, WSPC also regularly contributed to additional seasonal staff during the Park’s warm and busier months for that late shift. 

Gardeners Guilherme and Dwayne, maintenance workers DeAndre and Saul, and Playground Associate “Miss Debbie,” as the kids know her, are valuable assets to the Park. Assets that wouldn’t be there if it weren’t for WSPC. And the benefit they bring is tangible. Instead of the last maintenance shift ending at 5pm, it’s now as late as 10pm in the warmer months. That’s 5 more hours of trash cans being emptied instead of filling up. Because WSPC funds staff to service the restrooms, they’re open on average nearly 1,000 more hours a year than in other public parks, and are more frequently restocked and cleaned. Miss Debbie not only helps keep the playgrounds cleaner, but she’s become a fixture for neighborhood kids, sharing kindness and friendliness while she plays games and makes crafts. And perhaps the most visually dramatic improvement is in the Park’s horticulture. With an actual landscape team in place, the scope of work can look far beyond the current season. Head Gardener Gui plants with the future in mind, putting in pollinator-friendly plants and paying close attention to what thrives and what doesn’t. In the spring and summer months when the weeds grow like…well, weeds, WSPC often hires additional gardening help to enhance the existing crew and allow them to keep up with the breakneck pace of work that WSP demands. 

As grant-funded positions, the salaries and benefits of these 5 workers are paid by grants that WSPC awards to NYC Parks earmarked for that purpose. It allows the workers access to city insurance and pension benefits and the stability of a government job, while also making it easy for them to fit into the existing staff hierarchy at the Park. That focus on funding full-time, quality employment is an essential part of the Conservancy’s hiring practices. It’s an investment, not just in good people, but in the institutional knowledge they now bring to bear for WSP. That’s why when the pandemic hit, the Washington Square Park Conservancy Board’s first decision was to recommit to the staff it supports and ensure that their salaries were secure.  

The value of the WSPC-funded staff goes deeper than more people to share the work. The hardworking people who fill these positions are growing institutional knowledge of the Park that lasts for years. So it isn’t just about another body pulling weeds or picking up trash, it’s about Gui being able to plan ahead as he selects what to grow from season to season. It’s about DeAndre knowing the exact timing and pattern that creates a perfect trash pickup schedule, and being able to share that with new workers. It’s about Dwayne teaching a 30-year-old born-and-bred New Yorker how to rake leaves for the first time during a volunteer day. The more years a person works in this Park the more their depth and understanding of it grows, and that benefits the entire staff and Park community. It’s like having a walking, talking cheat sheet of best practices. And it allows a sense of ownership and pride in their Park that inspires the kind of hard work and dedication that WSP needs.