For Sonia Cortes, the battle for Sunset Park began with soup. Two years ago, after the pandemic wiped out her job as a seamstress, Ms. Cortes started selling pozole, a brothy Mexican soup, in the park, a 25-acre swath of green in southwestern Brooklyn. By last fall, the Sunday market had grown to more than 80 vendors, mostly immigrant women selling Mexican street food and wares to large weekend crowds. They called it Plaza Tonatiuh, after an Aztec sun god. On Easter Sunday, dozens of officers clashed violently with vendors and organizers, who locked arms in resistance.

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