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Harlem’s Trash Bins Were Overflowing. So the City Took 223 Away.
By Winnie Hu
Aug. 19, 2018
The green litter basket had stood on a street corner in Harlem for as long as anyone could remember, collecting unwanted plastic bottles, candy wrappers and crumpled bags and papers.
Then one day it was gone. And it was not the only one: Over the course of the past year, 222 other trash cans have also disappeared.
An only-in-New York crime spree? No. More like the heavy hand of municipal bureaucrats.
The New York City Sanitation Department has taken away the litter baskets from Harlem primarily because it says that while the baskets are intended only for litter from pedestrians, most had been crammed full of trash bags and debris from homes and businesses.
The finger-wagging policy has been applied well beyond Harlem, with misused trash cans hauled away from neighborhoods across the city, including the Upper West Side, Brooklyn Heights, Fort Greene, Bay Ridge, the South Bronx, Maspeth and Ridgewood. In the past year, 1,131 litter baskets have vanished from city street corners, or about 5 percent of the 23,250 litter baskets dispersed in commercial and heavily used pedestrian corridors. The majority were removed for the offense of chronic misuse, though some baskets were also found in spots that did not meet the commercial criteria.
But no other area has felt the impact as much as Harlem and now its residents and leaders are fighting back, saying the loss of trash cans has left a mess on their sidewalks and unfairly punishes an entire neighborhood for the transgressions of a few. They point out that trash continues to be tossed where the baskets used to be — only in unsightly heaps on the ground that embarrass residents, drive away customers and tourists and draw roaches and rats. In a further insult, they say, people have even been fined for trash that piles up outside their homes or businesses.
“It’s a very big problem,” said State Assemblywoman Inez E. Dickens, a Democrat whose district includes Harlem. “It’s not just an eyesore — it’s a health issue that negatively impacts the people who live and work in this community.”
Ms. Dickens said she has received more than 150 complaints about the missing litter baskets, many from property owners who have been fined $100 or more after trash on the pavement blew in front of their homes and stores. Those violations, Ms. Dickens pointed out, are issued by the Sanitation Department, which removed the litter baskets in the first place. “Every day they’re getting violations and yet there are no trash cans,” Ms. Dickens said. “We know the city has to raise revenue, but not on the backs of residents and small business owners.”
Sanitation officials said they routinely review the placement and use of litter baskets and that removing those found to be chronically misused has been an effective way to curb improper trash disposal.
“It seems counterintuitive, but it has been very effective,” said Kathryn Garcia, the city’s sanitation commissioner, adding that removing litter baskets is just one of several measures the department takes to ensure cleaner streets and sidewalks.
Ms. Garcia said that her department continues to monitor sites where litter baskets are removed. In Harlem, there has been improvement on corners where household trash was often piled alongside litter baskets, she said. “We’re just not seeing the same amount of litter and trash on those corners,” she said.
In Harlem, the removal of the 223 litter baskets still leaves more baskets there than in other neighborhoods, sanitation officials said. Currently, there are 1,399 litter baskets in Harlem, compared with 779 baskets on the Upper West Side and 719 on the Upper East Side.
The officials also noted that the overall cleanliness of sidewalks in Harlem has improved in recent years, as reflected in city inspection reports. A total of 1,993 violations were issued to property owners for dirty sidewalks in fiscal year 2018, down from 2,434 the year before, according to city records. However, the number of violations during the same period for litter along street curbs rose to 6,079 from 5,796.
Harlem residents counter that sanitation officials should be putting out more litter baskets and emptying them more often — not taking them away — and keeping a closer eye on the baskets to prevent misuse.
“I’m an eighth-generation New Yorker,” said Christina Fernandez, an elementary-school teacher. “Never before have I experienced an intersection in New York without trash cans — and usually at least three out of four corners have them.”
Gale A. Brewer, the Manhattan borough president, said she had received complaints for months about the missing litter baskets in Harlem, and more recently, the Upper West Side. Her office has sent multiple emails and letters to sanitation officials to protest the removal of the trash cans and to seek an explanation of the agency’s policy. “Residents asked for enforcement against dumping, more trash pickups and more trash cans, but it seems like what they got was fewer trash cans, a worsened dumping problem and even some inappropriate tickets,” she said. “The neighborhood deserves better.”
With New York City growing ever more crowded, the flood of newcomers and tourists has brought more litter and trash to Harlem and other thriving neighborhoods. In the South Bronx, where overflowing litter baskets have become a constant headache in heavily trafficked areas, Rafael Salamanca Jr., a city councilman, said he was told by sanitation officials that they did not have the resources to add more baskets. So this year, the councilman, a Democrat, set aside $40,000 in city funds to purchase 50 new litter baskets in his district.
Mr. Salamanca said that removing litter baskets based on misuse only exacerbates litter problems because it leaves fewer baskets. When he was the manager of a local community board a few years ago, sanitation workers removed a half-dozen baskets because they were being filled with household trash. He protested and the baskets were brought back. “My constituents want to walk through clean streets,” he said. “You want to see city agencies working for the people.”
In one neighborhood, Ridgewood, Queens, where 63 of the 67 litter baskets were taken away, the Sanitation Department’s no-nonsense approach has actually cleaned up the trash problem. Commuters headed to the subway used to dispose of their household trash in the baskets along Fresh Pond Road. “Every single one of them was abused — they were all overflowing,” said Paul Kerzner, a member of the local community board.
At Mr. Kerzner’s urging, all but four of those baskets were removed five years ago in an early test case of the department’s policy. There were complaints but the street corners became “immaculate,” he said.
In Harlem, sanitation officials said in a statement that they had reviewed community feedback, and “after careful consideration” they replaced litter baskets at five spots along Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard, Frederick Douglass Boulevard and Edgecombe Avenue. But the same statement went on to say: “We will continue to monitor the new baskets for improper disposal, and they may be again removed should problems reoccur.”
The department also sent out more enforcement agents and sanitation officers to monitor the litter baskets and surrounding area. Violations for misuse start at $100 and can only be issued to people who are caught in the act of littering, sanitation officials said. The department is also expanding education and outreach efforts about the proper use of litter baskets.
This was prevalent in Sunset Park especially coming from people who lived above businesses.
I've been becoming with angry with the sanitation issues in my neighborhood. I had to contact my elected officials about constant trash overflow, though quite frankly this has been a CONSTANT issue since that idiot de Blasio took office around the City. The entire City is dirtier now than before. Our commercial areas were looking run down and I immediately got involved because that's how the neighborhood starts to go to the dogs. First the trash is everywhere, then graffiti and so on. They started making extra pick-ups to address the issue including on weekends, but now we have a few other issues to deal with.
You can thank your fellow scumbag neighbors. You know the people who throw their household trash in the baskets clogging them up. Baskets get taken away in the chronic misuse areas because of people who think corner wastebaskets are their own personal dumping ground.
You can thank your fellow scumbag neighbors. You know the people who throw their household trash in the baskets clogging them up. Baskets get taken away in the chronic misuse areas because of people who think corner wastebaskets are their own personal dumping ground.
There's some truth to that, but some of it is simply due to rezoning of areas that were more industrial and not accounting for that.
You can thank your fellow scumbag neighbors. You know the people who throw their household trash in the baskets clogging them up. Baskets get taken away in the chronic misuse areas because of people who think corner wastebaskets are their own personal dumping ground.
I loved my apartment and proximity to the subway but the general population of the neighborhood wasn't great. I once had a neighbor that had a small store close to the end of the block - he one day decided he was going to hang fish to dry. It took me a while to realize what was going on, I use to walk on the other side of the street but was getting attacked (that's what it felt like) by these giant cow flies. I was so pissed, I yelled at him that I was going to call the Health Dept. By the next day it was all gone. I say this because all that crap, the garbage the things you do outside all leads to the downfall.
Last edited by Marshabrady; 08-20-2018 at 02:07 PM..
Harlem’s Trash Bins Were Overflowing. So the City Took 223 Away.
By Winnie Hu
Aug. 19, 2018
The green litter basket had stood on a street corner in Harlem for as long as anyone could remember, collecting unwanted plastic bottles, candy wrappers and crumpled bags and papers.
Then one day it was gone. And it was not the only one: Over the course of the past year, 222 other trash cans have also disappeared.
An only-in-New York crime spree? No. More like the heavy hand of municipal bureaucrats.
The New York City Sanitation Department has taken away the litter baskets from Harlem primarily because it says that while the baskets are intended only for litter from pedestrians, most had been crammed full of trash bags and debris from homes and businesses.
The finger-wagging policy has been applied well beyond Harlem, with misused trash cans hauled away from neighborhoods across the city, including the Upper West Side, Brooklyn Heights, Fort Greene, Bay Ridge, the South Bronx, Maspeth and Ridgewood. In the past year, 1,131 litter baskets have vanished from city street corners, or about 5 percent of the 23,250 litter baskets dispersed in commercial and heavily used pedestrian corridors. The majority were removed for the offense of chronic misuse, though some baskets were also found in spots that did not meet the commercial criteria.
But no other area has felt the impact as much as Harlem and now its residents and leaders are fighting back, saying the loss of trash cans has left a mess on their sidewalks and unfairly punishes an entire neighborhood for the transgressions of a few. They point out that trash continues to be tossed where the baskets used to be — only in unsightly heaps on the ground that embarrass residents, drive away customers and tourists and draw roaches and rats. In a further insult, they say, people have even been fined for trash that piles up outside their homes or businesses.
“It’s a very big problem,” said State Assemblywoman Inez E. Dickens, a Democrat whose district includes Harlem. “It’s not just an eyesore — it’s a health issue that negatively impacts the people who live and work in this community.”
Ms. Dickens said she has received more than 150 complaints about the missing litter baskets, many from property owners who have been fined $100 or more after trash on the pavement blew in front of their homes and stores. Those violations, Ms. Dickens pointed out, are issued by the Sanitation Department, which removed the litter baskets in the first place. “Every day they’re getting violations and yet there are no trash cans,” Ms. Dickens said. “We know the city has to raise revenue, but not on the backs of residents and small business owners.”
Sanitation officials said they routinely review the placement and use of litter baskets and that removing those found to be chronically misused has been an effective way to curb improper trash disposal.
“It seems counterintuitive, but it has been very effective,” said Kathryn Garcia, the city’s sanitation commissioner, adding that removing litter baskets is just one of several measures the department takes to ensure cleaner streets and sidewalks.
Ms. Garcia said that her department continues to monitor sites where litter baskets are removed. In Harlem, there has been improvement on corners where household trash was often piled alongside litter baskets, she said. “We’re just not seeing the same amount of litter and trash on those corners,” she said.
In Harlem, the removal of the 223 litter baskets still leaves more baskets there than in other neighborhoods, sanitation officials said. Currently, there are 1,399 litter baskets in Harlem, compared with 779 baskets on the Upper West Side and 719 on the Upper East Side.
The officials also noted that the overall cleanliness of sidewalks in Harlem has improved in recent years, as reflected in city inspection reports. A total of 1,993 violations were issued to property owners for dirty sidewalks in fiscal year 2018, down from 2,434 the year before, according to city records. However, the number of violations during the same period for litter along street curbs rose to 6,079 from 5,796.
Harlem residents counter that sanitation officials should be putting out more litter baskets and emptying them more often — not taking them away — and keeping a closer eye on the baskets to prevent misuse.
“I’m an eighth-generation New Yorker,” said Christina Fernandez, an elementary-school teacher. “Never before have I experienced an intersection in New York without trash cans — and usually at least three out of four corners have them.”
Gale A. Brewer, the Manhattan borough president, said she had received complaints for months about the missing litter baskets in Harlem, and more recently, the Upper West Side. Her office has sent multiple emails and letters to sanitation officials to protest the removal of the trash cans and to seek an explanation of the agency’s policy. “Residents asked for enforcement against dumping, more trash pickups and more trash cans, but it seems like what they got was fewer trash cans, a worsened dumping problem and even some inappropriate tickets,” she said. “The neighborhood deserves better.”
With New York City growing ever more crowded, the flood of newcomers and tourists has brought more litter and trash to Harlem and other thriving neighborhoods. In the South Bronx, where overflowing litter baskets have become a constant headache in heavily trafficked areas, Rafael Salamanca Jr., a city councilman, said he was told by sanitation officials that they did not have the resources to add more baskets. So this year, the councilman, a Democrat, set aside $40,000 in city funds to purchase 50 new litter baskets in his district.
Mr. Salamanca said that removing litter baskets based on misuse only exacerbates litter problems because it leaves fewer baskets. When he was the manager of a local community board a few years ago, sanitation workers removed a half-dozen baskets because they were being filled with household trash. He protested and the baskets were brought back. “My constituents want to walk through clean streets,” he said. “You want to see city agencies working for the people.”
In one neighborhood, Ridgewood, Queens, where 63 of the 67 litter baskets were taken away, the Sanitation Department’s no-nonsense approach has actually cleaned up the trash problem. Commuters headed to the subway used to dispose of their household trash in the baskets along Fresh Pond Road. “Every single one of them was abused — they were all overflowing,” said Paul Kerzner, a member of the local community board.
At Mr. Kerzner’s urging, all but four of those baskets were removed five years ago in an early test case of the department’s policy. There were complaints but the street corners became “immaculate,” he said.
In Harlem, sanitation officials said in a statement that they had reviewed community feedback, and “after careful consideration” they replaced litter baskets at five spots along Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard, Frederick Douglass Boulevard and Edgecombe Avenue. But the same statement went on to say: “We will continue to monitor the new baskets for improper disposal, and they may be again removed should problems reoccur.”
The department also sent out more enforcement agents and sanitation officers to monitor the litter baskets and surrounding area. Violations for misuse start at $100 and can only be issued to people who are caught in the act of littering, sanitation officials said. The department is also expanding education and outreach efforts about the proper use of litter baskets.
Some people leave their household things by the garbages as if they have a personal janitor. Sanitation got tired of the bullsh** complained to its higher ups and stripped the trash cans away. They need to replace em with those new rat proof garbages. They never woulda did this on the UES or UWS. Heads would roll
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