On a recent Sunday morning, the Williamsbridge Oval Park Recreation Center looked like the victim of a hurricane spewing brightly-colored paint. The previous night, someone, or some people, had broken into the Center and completely trashed the place.

And they weren’t done. The next night, they, or someone else (a copycat criminal, perhaps), broke in again and threw paint all over the Center’s computer room.  

The vandalism, which happened between Saturday night, June 28 and Monday morning, June 30, completely shut down the Center, a social and recreational hub for local youth and adults, for three days while the Parks Department worked to clean up the mess.

Drawers and shelves inside the Center were ransacked. A concrete stairway to the side of the building and even some of the surrounding flower beds were covered with paint. For a while, it was uncertain if the computers would function after being splattered with paint.

Fortunately, the damage turned out to be mostly superficial and by Monday there was little trace of the vandalism. (Though sticky with paint residue, the computers were up and running on Monday.) Still, the incident angered local residents.

“It’s heartbreaking,” said Annette Melendez, an area resident for 25 years. “[My three kids] haven’t even gone to the park since it happened. That’s not what you want your kids to see when they go to the park.”

Melendez said her neighbors heard raucous activity going on in the park until 4 a.m. Sunday morning the night the center was vandalized.

A couple of park staffers who spoke to the Norwood News on the condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to speak to the press, said whoever did the damage on the first night, entered through a second floor door, which was left open and is easily accessible from the Oval’s upper track level. On the second night, the vandals broke in by prying off a metal window guard near the computer room.

There were some graffiti tags on the windows that read: “NOS.” One park staffer was told by local youth that NOS meant “New Old School,” but they didn’t know who did it.

The Parks Department is nearly “powerless” to stop vandals from gaining access to the Center, said one park staffer, unless a fence is put up around the balcony area. The staffer said vandalism in general is “demoralizing” to park employees, but hurts the countless local residents who rely on the Center.

“We are fully cooperating with NYPD to heighten security presence in this area,” said Parks spokesperson Jesslyn Tiao in an e-mail. “We have installed a new security system, secured gates with additional chains and locks, and increased Parks Enforcement Patrol on site.” She added that the Parks Department needed local residents to report suspicious behavior at parks to either 311 or 911.  

By press time, the Police Department did not respond to requests for more information about the incident.