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By: Hellen Zaboulani
Since the pandemic, the 25-acre park in southwestern Brooklyn has become home to a weekend marketplace, where over 80 vendors, mostly immigrant women, sold Mexican street food and wares, to help make their ends meet.
As reported by the NY Times, beginning last month, however, the marketplace in Sunset Park has become the source of tension, with police and parks enforcement officers working to shut it down. They say there have been complaints from community members and point out that the marketplace, dubbed Plaza Tonatiuh, never had a permit. On Easter Sunday, two people were arrested, as dozens of cops stormed in to break up the marketplace, only to meet with locked arms in resistance from vendors and organizers. “The police hurt us,” said Sonia Cortes, who has been selling soup there on weekends for the past two years, since she lost her job as a seamstress. “They were violent toward us,” she said. “We weren’t selling, and they still took us out.” A police spokesperson had commented saying the crowd blocked their efforts to reach one of the Plaza members, and that one police officer was punched in the conflict.
Ms. Cortes told the Times, that she and other immigrants were just trying to make a living. She said that on a good Sunday, she was able to earn $600 or $700 selling her Mexican soup, and that she used the money to pay for her rent. “They’ve taken bread off our table,” she said, noting that she now has $2000 in bills that she is not able to pay. The vendors have been banned from returning to the marketplace, and would risk confrontation or arrest if they try to return.
The opposing point of view, points out that the public space in Brooklyn is scarce and the neighborhood on the whole should decide how to use the park space. Sunset Park, boasting views of the Statue of Liberty and Lower Manhattan, caters to a mix of many different populations including working-class Asian and Latino populations, bordered by Park Slope on the north and Bay Ridge on the south. On the Western edge is Industry City, where new high-rise buildings have risen complaints about gentrification crowding out the lower-class residents.
An attempt to try to reach a compromise, and start with the permit process for the marketplace, seems slow to start. As per the Times, Edwin Rodriguez, NYC Parks’s assistant commissioner for urban park service, said that for the past two years, attempts to reach out to vendors have been met with aggression, particularly from a few of the organizers. “From an enforcement perspective,” Mr. Rodriguez said, “the vendors have been very peaceful, while the organizers have not, playing an oversized role in crowd agitation.”
Brian Garita, a founder of Plaza Tonatiuh, is one of the outspoken organizers, who could often be seen with a bullhorn. Mr. Garita, 26, has a master’s degree in public administration and urban development and sustainability. He has been organizing and uniting the vendors at Plaza Tonatiuh, holding political education sessions, and even deciding which vendors could and couldn’t participate.
