On the morning of April 26, police found the body of a man who had apparently hanged himself from a railing on the stairs leading down into French Charley Park, the sprawling 718-acre park that connects Norwood to Allerton. He was not the first dead body to be found in that park this year.

A stone’s throw away, on the Metro-North tracks that run under the bridge to the park entrance on East 204th Street and Webster Avenue, the decomposed body of another man was found, his body decayed and frozen.

Though unrelated, the two deaths add to the mixed reaction of French Charley’s Park, also known as Bronx Park, a sprawling green landscape with mostly uninterrupted paths. In a way, Bronx Park feels like a slice of wild forest between Webster Avenue and Bronx River Parkway. The forest floor is carpeted with violets and wildflowers. Dozens of huge fallen trees with trunks three- or four-feet thick lie on the ground. Rabbits scamper around, and red-breasted robins can be seen on the trees and turtles in the shallow, swampy ponds.

The park is not exactly untouched by human activity. Foot-worn paths meander around, and the whole space running parallel to the Metro-North tracks is littered with signs of party-goers: cans of Axe body spray, Country Club soda, Smirnoff Ice, flavored vodka, Bud Light, Corona bottle caps, and piles of cigarette butts, and used condoms.

It’s been known to serve as a so-called “pop up location” for the homeless, who’ve traversed the park’s leafier terrain to set up makeshift beds. On a recent day, signs of people occupying the forest could be seen: a tattered jacket and mat piled on a dead tree trunk by the Metro-North tracks, a gray sweatshirt and towel trampled into the mud a little further in, and two floral quilts laid out under the Mosholu Parkway overpass bridge. Their presence wasn’t as pronounced in 2017 when a full-blown pop-up location complete with a plastic burlap that served as a shield from the rain was found.

“You can actually see couches and stuff down there,” said a resident who went by Devin as he was walking towards Allerton.

Signs of a pop-up location within the park’s thicket of trees were barely in view, though just underneath a bridge at the southwestern end of the park abutting the New York Botanical Garden a muddy quilt, along with a box of chicken wings and empty juice bottles, were spotted one recent afternoon.

“The police don’t do a thing,” said another resident who went by Besim. “One told me you can’t do anything because it’s a free country. But you’re not free to do anything you want, come on. But they’re sleeping here. If you come here at 10 or 10:30[p.m.] people are still here drinking. The police don’t do s–t. Why the hell is that?”

Officers from the 52nd Precinct have broken up the encampments before, part of their routine patrol of the park. The city Department of Homeless Services’ HOME-STAT teams also visit the park at least three times a week. It hasn’t found any encampments.

The NYPD reported 20 serious crimes in Bronx Park in 2018, including 14 robberies and three felony assaults, up from 14 total crimes in 2017. Among them was the stabbing of a 14-year-old boy, who was chased through the park by alleged members of the Trinitarios gang–some of whom were also charged in the killing of Lesandro “Junior” Guzman-Feliz, which took place one day later.

During the day, a few local residents take walks through the park to meditate or look at the smooth green waters of the Bronx River. They barely ever venture inside at night, when it is pitch black. Others said they don’t enter the park at all. One bodega owner of Webster Gourmet Deli at the corner of Webster Avenue and East 204th Street said he had worked in the area for ten years and never set foot in it.

Willie, a homeless man who immigrated to the United States from Mexico 42 years ago, was one of the people routinely sleeping inside the park. He said he’d been calling it home for a year and that he knew the man who had died on the train tracks in January and had seen his body.

“The raccoons were still eating him,” Willie said.

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Welcome to the Norwood News, a bi-weekly community newspaper that primarily serves the northwest Bronx communities of Norwood, Bedford Park, Fordham and University Heights. Through our Breaking Bronx blog, we focus on news and information for those neighborhoods, but aim to cover as much Bronx-related news as possible. Founded in 1988 by Mosholu Preservation Corporation, a not-for-profit affiliate of Montefiore Medical Center, the Norwood News began as a monthly and grew to a bi-weekly in 1994. In September 2003 the paper expanded to cover University Heights and now covers all the neighborhoods of Community District 7. The Norwood News exists to foster communication among citizens and organizations and to be a tool for neighborhood development efforts. The Norwood News runs the Bronx Youth Journalism Heard, a journalism training program for Bronx high school students. As you navigate this website, please let us know if you discover any glitches or if you have any suggestions. We’d love to hear from you. You can send e-mails to norwoodnews@norwoodnews.org or call us anytime (718) 324-4998.