Amidst Overdose Crisis, Central Park Is City’s Latest Drug Den: Report

NEW YORK CITY, NY – Central’s Parks North Woods, the park’s largest urban forest, are a leafy urban refuge.

But this woody corner of Manhattan also provides cover for pervasive drug use, according to Gothamist.

During a recent visit to the North Woods, Gothamist spotted individuals injecting themselves, and observed “discarded clothes, plastic shopping bags filled with human feces, uncapped syringes and an extraordinary amount of brightly colored drug vials and fentanyl capsules commonly known as trash cans.”

Neighbors say that calls to local politicians and city agencies, as well as the Central Park Conservancy, “have not yielded noticeable change on the ground so far,” according to the report.

Overdose deaths have recently reached historic highs in New York City, where someone dies of a drug overdose every three hours. Opioids are involved in the vast majority – 84 percent – of these deaths.

For context, there were 386 homicides citywide in 2023, and 438 homicides in 2022. More than 3,000 New Yorkers died of a drug overdose in 2022.

Naloxone, or NARCAN, is a safe and widely available medication that can reverse the effects of an opioid overdose.

Free kits are available at some pharmacies and community centers. Naloxone may also be purchased over the counter.

Here’s how to respond if you encounter an overdose.