The Weekend Sweep (September 27-28, 2014)

Thankfully there were no incidents of dumping on my lil stretch o' land this past weekend. There was plenty of litter to contend with though: I did a pick-up on both Saturday and Sunday (even though I picked up every piece of litter I could find on Saturday, by Sunday afternoon 43rd Ave, 74th Street, and Woodside Avenue were full of debris again).

 

Most of the litter I encountered consisted of the usual booze bottles and plain white styrofoam takeout containers. But I did find an interesting item for my medical waste collection* (*this is a PHOTO collection; I throw out the items after photographing 'em). I found the item pictured below on 43rd Avenue. I looked it up on the BD vacutainer chart. This light-blue-topped vacutainer contains sodium citrate and is used for coagulation studies. This one doesn't appear to have been used--at least, no blood was visible to my naked eyeball. But it's just gross to find such an item on the street.

 

BD Vacutainer, found on 43rd Avenue between 72nd and 74th Streets on Saturday, 9/27/14

~~~~~~~~~~~  

AND, what neighborhood clean-up would be complete without the discovery of drug baggies? I found all three of these babes in a single patch of sidewalk grass, on 43rd Avenue close to 74th Street. I also found a snuff jar (I found another snuff jar, same brand, the following day). As far as I know snuff is legal; after all, it's tobacco, no?- so if cigs are legal I'd think that snuff would be, but I'm really not sure so if anyone knows, please drop me a line.

Three drug baggies and jar of snuff, found on 43rd Avenue near 74th Street on 9/27/14



Morning Walks...and Medical Waste!

For the past few days, I have been taking a shopping bag (regular plastic bag that you get from the grocery store) with me when I leave for work. In the 2.5-block walk to the train station, I manage to pick up so much litter that the bag is soon overflowing; usually it is full before I even make it to block #3. I don't know what exactly goes down on 74th Street at night, but I can surmise from the litter that it involves the consumption of many airplane-sized bottles o'booze, cigarillos, and take-out food that comes in plain white Styrofoam containers.

I assume that people who pass me on the street think I'm a nutjob. Maybe when I do this on the weekends and I am wearing a dirty tee shirt and jeans they assume that I am picking up garbage as some kind of work release/court-mandated job. But when I'm dressed for work and reaching down every two feet to retrieve another item of filth, it must make people wonder. It certainly makes them swerve a few feet out of their way to avoid me. However, this morning a woman actually said in passing,"That is very nice of you." It made my heart sing. It made everything...groovy (sorry, just got that song in my head). Seriously though, I really appreciate it when neighbors say thank you! Makes me feel like other people are actually benefiting from my garbage-collecting obsession.

On another note: I have to start a photographic chronicle of the medical waste I find on 43rd and 74th. Elmhurst Hospital is a few blocks away. At least some of the medical waste I find in the streets must be from people who left AMA, because it's the kind of stuff that folks normally wouldn't walk out with. Here is a list of some of the medical goodies I've come across:

*ECG pads (I've come across many of these, both in the gutters of 43rd and also along 74th Street)
*Hospital "footies" (the socks with treads on the bottom that are worn by hospital patients). I found a dirty/well-worn hospital sock on 43rd a couple weeks ago-- looked like someone had been wearing it as his or her sole foot protection (no pun intended) to walk the sidewalks and streets.
*Elmhurst patient wristband.
*Insulin needles. Okay, so these could have been left by a non-hospital patient/outpatient diabetic. I found these twice in front of my house. At least the person was considerate enough to recap them before tossing.
*Bandages of all kinds and sizes (adhesive strips, gauze, some with blood/pus/serosanguinous residue, yum!).

Correspondence re: 43rd Avenue

Just to keep everything in one place, I am going to start posting my correspondence regarding the 43rd Avenue sitch. Here are some exchanges from late February 2014, when 43rd Avenue was assaulted by horrible, filthy people in two incidents of excessive* dumping (*excessive even by 43rd Avenue standards:  in each instance, it looked like someone emptied an entire apartment onto the Avenue).

February 22, 2014 message to the city:

The information you have provided is as follows:
Form: Customer Comment
Message: Hello. Our neighborhood has a real problem with illegal dumping on 43rd Avenue between 72nd and 73rd Streets. A few days ago someone dumped an enormous pile of books, personal papers, cds, GLASS picture frames that are now broken, etc. This pile takes up 2 parking spaces, and makes the sidewalk impassable. I attempted to bag up some of the debris, but the job is enormous, dangerous (lots of broken glass), and requires a special trash pickup because there is just so much of it. There is a lot of mail in the pile, so you may be able to track down the person who did this. I will continue to try calling 311 (I was just on hold for about 20 mins), but this is not an isolated incident, just a much larger pile than usual. Please help!

 

Reply@customerservice.nyc.go
Thank you for contacting the City of New York. Your message has been forwarded to the appropriate agency for review and handling. For future reference, your service request number is 1-1-941347291.

Sincerely,

The City of New York

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I guess I also sent an e-mail to Councilman Dromm (I am still trying to find my e-mail message; I may have deleted it though). A very nice, helpful woman from his office replied.

Mon, Feb 24, 2014 at 11:25 AM

 

Dear Ms. -,

Recently, you contacted Council Member Dromm regarding an ongoing problem with illegal dumping on 43^rd Avenue between 72^nd and 74^th Streets. In your email you mentioned that you called 311. Were you able to obtain a 311 reference number? If yes, please provide me with that number so that I can follow up with the Department of Sanitation. Department of Sanitation requires a 311 number before they will take a request for follow up from this office. In addition, if you are able to photograph the conditions and send me copies of the photos this will help me follow up with DSNY. If you have any questions, please let me know. 

Sincerely,

Sharon Stanley, Esq.
Constituent Services Liaison
Office of NYC Council Member Daniel Dromm



Dear Ms. Stanley,
Thank you very much for your e-mail. I just got through to 311 a moment ago (around 4pm on Monday, February 24). I reported the problem. The reference number that the 311 operator gave me is 2014MLM402685. I will take photos tomorrow morning on the way to work and e-mail them to you. Thank you again.



Dear Ms. Stanley,

While I was at work yesterday, someone came by and collected the huge pile of trash on 43rd Avenue. I guess other neighbors called 311 about it before I did. In any case, the area is clean now, so there is no need for you to follow up on my call to 311. But I thank you for your attention to the matter and your quick response.

 

March 3, 2014

I’m glad to hear that the problem was resolved.  If the issue develops again, please feel free to contact me with your 311 reference number and I will follow up with Sanitation immediately.

Sharon

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~H
Here are two other complaint numbers that I had written down on post-it notes:
2014-MLGA-20957: September 2014 complaint to 311 regarding dumping of large glass case (looked like a deli case; definitely commercial). As always, DSNY was great and responded within a day or two. 2014-MLMA-06201: September 5, 2014 complaint to 311 regarding dumping of construction debris plus 2 large trash bags.

The Elmhurst "water" balloon

I tried to explain the phenomenon of P-bags to my friend who lives in another (much cleaner!) town. The item pictured above is a thin plastic bag (think produce bags from the supermarket) full of a yellow liquid that I assume is human urine. I have seen so many of these on and around 43rd Avenue. I passed this one on my walk to the train this morn. It was about 5 feet from the curb, so hopefully a car will roll over it soon and the contents will be expelled that way. I try to do my part to pick up litter, but I draw the line at touching a flimsy bag full of urine.

I have so many questions about these P-bags. No, I no longer wonder why someone would toss such an item, making the neighborhood look really gross and creating VERY unpleasant clean-up work for another person. But I am really curious as to why they choose this particular means of eliminating waste. Specifically:

1. Why not just pee on the curb/against a building, ie, NOT in your vehicle? I assume that it is cab/car service drivers who create these Elmhurst souvenirs. The majority of cabbies are men. Men have the anatomical means to eliminate urine in public places rather discreetly. I understand that cabbies  cannot afford to waste time driving around trying to find a business that allows non-customers to run in and use the facilities. Even the city Starbuckers have started to lock their bathrooms. My question is, why don't they find themselves a not-too-busy street and urinate against the curb? Heck, even if they peed on the curb on a BUSY street they would probably be able to get back in their car and drive off without comment. Just last week I saw a man right on 14th Street off 6th Avenue (in Manhattan) urinating against the Big D's Discount Store; this was at 9am, when the sidewalk was crowded with rush hour commuters and the PoPo presence was strong. Don't get me wrong, I don't want to encourage public urination in my neighborhood; I'm just really curious because I would think that not peeing in the vehicle in which one spends 12+ hours a day would be desirable.

2. Okay, you don't want to risk peeing out on the street. But why would you choose to pee into such a flimsy receptacle? Every P-bag I have seen has been a flimsy, very thin plastic bag: they look like produce bags from a supermarket. Why not invest in a urinal? I guess because then they'd have to empty it and at least occasionally give it a perfunctory rinse, whereas this is a single-use, free item that they can just toss out the car window. But why choose such a flimsy receptacle? I would think that the risk of tears and leakage of these thin plastic bags is very high. Why not pee into a bottle? (some folks do; believe me, I've picked up plenty of Poland Spring bottles full of yellow fluid). Or at least use a regular (ie, thicker) plastic shopping bag that would be less prone to leaks?

43rd Avenue car break-ins

I was just chatting with a neighbor, and she told me that her friend's car was broken into while it was parked on 43rd. Someone smashed the window and stole a bag that was in the car. The lady reported it to the 110th precinct. I have heard about neighborhood car break-ins in passing--I think I just read about them as subject headings of posts on the Jackson Heights Families listserv. Stupidly, I did not pay attention to these posts because I assumed they were happening closer to JH.

I can tell from the litter that some nefarious sh*t transpires on 43rd in the wee hours (maybe in the daytime hours too, who knows?). Apparently car window smashing is one more crime that we have to worry about on this stretch of land.

At the risk of sounding all broken-windowsy, maybe if we work to keep 43rd Avenue clean (at least garbage-free), we will communicate to would-be thieves and druggies and johns that this area IS cared about and that neighbors ARE WATCHING what goes on.... and we will report criminal behavior.

September 19, 2014 conditions

I was so sad to see a new load of trash on 43rd Avenue tonight [Friday, September 19]. Actually, there were two new piles- one on either end of the Ave. These definitely qualify as "enough trash to fill a bathtub"- TWO tubs. I think I will try to tackle the smaller pile, as it looks "clean" (seems to consist of a huge flatscreen TV box* and a bunch of plastic planters). But I'm not touching the other pile, which smells like decomp. I'll put in yet another call to 311. I am grateful to the DSNY workers who respond to these disgusting dumping calls. I wish some power-that-is would help me implement a long-term solution to the 43rd Avenue dumping problem.

*Hmm, so someone can purchase an enormous TV, bring it home, and yet not be able to put the box out (in front of their own property, I mean) for recycling? I hate to make assumptions about people (e.g., people who buy moviescreen-size TVs for their living rooms probably spend a great deal of time with their wide anal regions glued to the couch and their eyes fixed on the pretty moving objects on screen, and probably haven't opened a book, um, ever). But come on, it's bad enough that you would want to bring such a hideous, neuron-zapping contraption into your home. At least have the decency to properly dispose of the box in which it was packaged.

Sunday, September 21, 2014, 8pm

UPDATE! I called 311 yesterday morning to report the garbage that is partially depicted in the photo above [Case number 2014-MLAA10185, called in 9/20/14]. This morning, I found that most of the pile had been picked up. YAY DSNY!!--same day service, wow! I am very grateful for their prompt response. This afternoon I took care of the scattered litter that was left behind. There was enough to fill two large black bags. But the area is currently litter-free!! (let's see how many hours this lasts). **Oh, and when I was picking up the stray litter, a man walking by with groceries (which would indicate that he lives nearby) said thank you! I can't tell you how grateful I am to receive thank-you's from the neighbors. Makes me feel like people actually appreciate- heck, NOTICE- the difference I am trying to make on this neglected stretch of land.

Ah, 43rd Avenue: keeping it classy!

Okay, this photo was staged: I found the bottle and the drug baggies in different sections of 43rd, not right next to each other.

I'm going to save the drug baggies from now on, and see how many I can collect in a week. Probably a lot. Maybe I'll make a collage.

The ubiquitous drug baggies were part of my motivation to start picking up garbage in my neighborhood. You see, there is a C.A. group that meets around here, and I always thought it was offensive to people who are actively struggling to OVERCOME their addictions to have to walk among drug paraphernalia.

 

9/26/14 Update (and tangential scribblings): The sad thing about being a human being is that you are just one of however-many-bazillion other human beings; as such, the likelihood of having a unique idea is low. I just read that someone already came up with the idea of collecting drug baggies. Though I was disappointed to learn that I'm not  as ground-breakingly brilliant as I thought, I have to admit that I find this guy's project pretty neat. You can read about British photographer Dan Giannopoulos's project here: http://gianphotography.com/discarded-drug-baggies/

 

I haven't seen such a variety of drug baggy designs in Elmhurst. But I do remember finding an autumnal-themed baggy last year-- I think it featured pumpkins. I wish I saved it, or at least photographed it. I thought it was very quaint, and wondered if MStew had expanded her vast empire to include drug baggy production. After all, if there is a buck to be made somewhere, Martha will sniff it out in no time. Did you know she sells her own line of pills now? For real! Didn't she learn anything from Dr Phil's foray into the diet pill scene in the early 2000's??

The Elmhurst Whitefish

Sadly, this is a common sight on 43rd Avenue. I am sincerely glad that people are using protection (especially people engaged in "professional" sexual exchanges, which I think are common on 43rd Avenue in the evening hours). But come on, take it with you and dispose of it properly!

 

For those wondering where I got the term "Whitefish": a friend who

used to volunteer as a Coney Island trash pickerupper said

that they called used condoms found on the sandy Brooklyn knolls

"Coney Island Whitefish."

Santa came to 43rd last night and left me these goodies!