Feb. 26: Four hours of filth

This past Saturday, I spent a grand total of 4 hours picking up crap from 43rd, 44th, and Woodside Avenues between 72nd and 74th Streets. I filled 3 large trash bags. 

Fancy a nap?

Drug baggies du jour:

And of course some of these:

And some quality booze to get you in the mood:

Thankfully there wasn't any major dumping, just the usual litter:

Again, the 3 short blocks I cleaned weren't in the middle of nowhere. They are all blocks on which people reside, and in close vicinity to a church, a preschool, and a huge elementary school. It is SO not okay for kids to walk by such disgusting crap- ie, the condoms, tiny drug baggies with white powder residue, empty booze botyles. What the fork?- doesn't ANYONE around here think this is problematic?! Ugh!

Gaah!!!! Is 44th Avenue the new 43rd?

Yesterday I decided to venture beyond the bucolic hills of 43rd Ave (alright, there's nothing bucolic about 43rd Ave...but it IS on a hill!). It appears 44th Avenue is just as bad as 43rd!

44th Avenue Whitefish (perhaps a misnomer, in this particular instance):

44th Ave drug baggie and stolen* Amazon boxes (*alright, I have no proof that they were stolen...but several packages were stolen from my porch this past month, so I'm a little suspicious... and/or jaded/crazy?)

44th Avenue General Filth:

AND of course 44th Avenue dumping.

No trash cans?- that's ok, just throw your litter in front of this Apartment Building

I am so sick of the filth surrounding this apartment building on the Woodside-Elmhurst border. These photos show what it looks like on a GOOD day. There is usually a great deal more litter on the sidewalk and gutter and on the patches of grass. I can't stand this! None of the people who reside herein seem to care that they live in this filth.

What else is new?

Sunday morning on 43rd Avenue:

Noooooooooooooo :(

I cleaned the avenue of dumping dreams twice this past weekend. But when I surveyed the block on Thursday night, this is the scene that greated my bloodshot eyes:

To summarize: 2 mattresses, passenger seats from a vehicle, and trash (including an Elmhurst whitefish).

I called 311 that same night, and the wonderful local DSNY workers picked it up already. Thank you DSNY!!  ❤️❤️ 

It's freezing outside but we're dump dump dumping

Today's dumpfest :(

But hey, I scored this 43rd Avenue souvenier: a discarded Hello Kitty bracelet:

A festive Valentine's Day was had on 43rd Avenue!

Yesterday I went out in the freezing cold and picked up every piece of litter from the Avenue. (FWIW, I filled 2 trash bags with the crap from this short block between 74th and 72nd). I stupidly thought that yesterday's clean-up would at least last through the night, especially since it was like 0 degrees. I believed that the frigid temperature would keep the usual troglodyte druggy sh*tbags and dumpers indoors. But alas, neither cold nor frost nor -5 degree wind chills will keep the garbage (human and otherwise) off 43rd Avenue.

This blue baggie was right on the church steps.

Ah, romance was in the air! 

Nothing keeps you warm like a belly full of Georgi! (Georgi is actually better for the OGCLE: it comes in a plastic bottle so at least I do not have to clean up broken glass.)

Here we have a pile of 43rd Ave crap, along with what looks like frozen urine.

And of course, we have to have some more dumping! This looks like it is from the same f*ckhole whose crap I picked up yesterday: old clothes mixed with construction debris. The OPEN orange bucket contained linoleum paste; thankfully it froze and did not stick to the ground. It was heavy as f*ck to lift.

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I apologize for cursing so much, but I am SO disgusted and FURIOUS!- I mean, what the serious fork is wrong with people?!? These items were left around the corner from a church with a preschool as well as P.S. 12, so little kids have to pass booze and drug and sex leavings. I grew up in Flatbush in the 80s and I remember collecting the ubiquitous discarded crack viles because the caps came in different colors, and the vials made good Barbie cups. I mean, that sh*t is not right!! Kids should not have to be exposed to this kind of crap!!

The Roosevelt/74th Street Eyesore: Some Hope

Clearly the MTA and city do not care how crappy the neighborhood looks. The photo below captures the scene that greets people as they exit the Roosevelt Avenue train station: a construction fence that serves as a canvas for every troglodyte loser graffiti scribbler in the area. It seems like a new tag appears every day. This train station is a major transportation hub. I always see people exiting the station with suitcases (after catching the E from the JFK air train?). Imagine if you were a tourist and this sh*tstye was your first encounter with the great city of New Yawk. Well, let's not forget that first these poor souls had to navigate the disgusting airports, and then the even more disgusting Roosevelt Ave station, where people live in the Bank of America kiosk, groups of severely drunk dudes sit/sleep on the benches all day and night....  And good luck to you if you need to use the bathroom in this station: you think Starbucks provides people with public bathing facilities (via the sinks), well, at least Starbux bathrooms have doors with locks. In the Roosevelt Ave train station the bathroom doors are propped open at all times (for safety reasons), but this lack of privacy does not deter people bathing, forking, shaving their legs, crapping in the sink, et cetera. 

Anyway, here's a photo of the "temporary" fence that has been up for 3 years now.

  ******

UPDATE: Wed., Feb. 17, 2016

Today the Woodside Neighborhood Association painted over the graffiti-covered "temporary" fence across the street from the Roosevelt Avenue train station. These kids did the work that the property owner and local elected officials and MTA ignored for several years. Yeah the fence is private property, but since it is adjacent to a huge train station,  and across the street from the much-touted Diversity Plaza, the city and MTA really should have kept it clean. Clearly they do not give a crap about this neighborhood, though. Thankfully the awesome people- many of them teenagers- of the Woodside Neighborhood Association volunteered their time to do this job. Thank you!!!

 

The snow melted, revealing crap as usual

Yesterday I spent 4.5 hours picking up litter. I collected 3 stuffed-to-capacity trash bags of litter from a grand total of 4 blocks. That's right, 4 measly blocks. 

The highlights were as follows:

1. Four too-heavy-to-lift bags dumped in a parking spot on Woodside Between 72nd and 74th Streets. Quite frankly I am surprised that no one dragged them onto the sidewalk; parking spaces 'round heeyah are few and far between.

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2. This photo sums up the general state of things: litter everywhere, accumulated since my last OGCLE run some time before the 'zard. God forbid anyone clean the sidewalk or curb in front of their residence or business.

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3. Now we get to Forty-turd Avenue. Thankfully there was no dumping this week. I guess it was too hard to drive bags of trash down an unplowed tertiary road like 43rd; the dumpers opted for Woodside Avenue instead (see above).

But there was plenty of the typical 43rd Ave litter: booze bottles, drug sh*t, and Elmhurst water balloons.

The car in the photo above was occupied by a pot-smoking hipster (beard and everything). I was picking up trash around his car when the smell hit me. 

My most interesting find was the bag captured in the photographic image below. There was a big green container and a bunch of, er, button baggies (which have other uses on 43rd Ave). I just threw this out. Maybe the container was full of buttons, or maybe it was full of weed... I would feel very bad if I threw out a crafter's accumulation of supplies (eg, buttons, beads). But if this was some kind of drug crap, sorry not sorry.