[2] Although Trump threatened to take the parkland back after the closure was announced,[2] the land remains in the control of the New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation.

[8] By 2012, the planned dog park remained on hold due to difficulties raising funds for fences and asbestos abatement.

[11] During a 2015 visit by The Rachel Maddow Show, there were no signs of any recent upkeep; instead, the publicly accessible land was found to contain crumbling graffiti-covered buildings, empty map kiosks, and weed-choked parking lots.

Club framed the park as an "abandoned wasteland", with "muddy fields, overgrown tennis courts, and dilapidated buildings" and a swimming pool in disrepair.

Assemblyman Charles D. Lavine suggested that the park be named for Peter Salem, an African American who served in the American Revolutionary War and is thought by some historians to have been Muslim,[16] while the district's U.S. Representative Sean Patrick Maloney suggested that the park be named after folk singer Pete Seeger.

[19] In September 2017, New York's 25th Assembly District Representative Nily Rozic, a Democrat, suggested renaming the park in honor of Heather Heyer, who died in a vehicle-ramming attack while protesting the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia.

[20] Rozic, along with New York State Senator Brad Hoylman, reintroduced legislation to rename the park in 2018 but it did not make it out of committee.

Galef called for the park to be renamed in honor of former New York Republican governor George Pataki, who grew up in the area.