NEW YORK CITY TRASH

With an absence of alleys in New York the only place to put the garbage is on the side of the street. As the old saying goes, “You can’t live with it and you can’t live without it” When my sister visited me from Michigan she saw the garbage outside our building (At Madison and 37th Streets) and declared the neighborhood unsafe.


The Department of Sanitation reports that each week, the city collects at least 64,000 tons of household and institutional waste. We don’t necessarily like the look of garbage on the street but as resilient New Yorkers we found way to make lemonade out of lemons. For example, we eat and drink at the “Trash Bar” http://www.thetrashbar.com/ , and our artists have turned trash into “Sculpture” http://nycgarbage.com/.


Even Broadway uses :”NYC Trash“ as a comic script in the Neil Simon’s play “A Prisoner in Second Avenue.” Mel Edison, the protagonist, while standing on his balcony leaning over proclaims to his wife Edna “What a stink. Will you look at that? Fourteen stories up and you can smell the garbage from here. Why do they put garbage out in 84* heat? Hey Edna (His wife): Do you want to smell the garbage? “Edna walks to the balcony, leans over and says” you’re right; if you really want to smell it you have to stand right here.” Mel says: “The whole country is being buried by garbage. It keeps being piling up higher and higher. In three years this (14th floor) apartment will be on the second floor. “Edna replies” What do you want them to do, save it up and throw it out in the winter. They got to throw it out sometimes, that’s why they call it garbage