One of New York’s last private beaches, the Silver Gull in Queens, sent out an email to its members alerting them that the club’s playground would be shut down over the weekend, “due to the recent and increasing incidence of vandalism from within the club.”
The playground had been attacked with racist and anti-Semitic slurs, including “Heil Hitler” and red swastikas. Racial slurs targeting black people and the he words “gas chamber” were painted on a door, according to photos shared with The New York Times.
Police believe a group broke into shed, trashed it, then made their way to the playground.
The club has since removed the offensive slurs.
The latest incident of hate comes at a time that New York has seen an increase in hate crimes., especially anti-Semitism. The NYPD’s website shows that anti-Semitic hate has risen from 58 in 2018 to 110 so far, this year (June 2019).
