Tuesday, July 31, 2007
Reader comments...and forbidden chocolate cake.
From one reader:
This is one of the funniest AND useful web-posts I've seen. Kudos. Unfortunately, I've noticed that many, if not most, New Yorkers are somewhat disinterested in cleaning up after themselves, let alone cleaning the greatest city on earth. I live near the park on West 4th and have seen people leave their garbage (wrappers/brown bags/empty bottles) after they're done eating. Don't the police give quality of life citations to people who do this? The City won't be clean until each of its inhabitants does his/her part!
Thank you...and yes, the City supposedly gives fines. But they should be more serious about it. They should treat litterer's (is that a word?) like speeder's (is that a word?) on the Garden State Parkway on the last day of a month. The only way to really stop people from tossing trash all over our great city is to scare the hell out of 'em--just look at how our President convinced half the country to vote for him 3 1/2 years ago. Scare tactics work. Why not take all those officers in training and put them on trash patrol while they're out and about learning the ropes. In Tokyo its simply a way of life--not littering--you just don't do it. Cigarette butts go into your pocket ashtray (really) and trash goes into your can at work or home...or if you have to, in the can on the street corner. We need to change the mindset of New Yorkers.
Another comment:
Hi Trashy! Finally someone working to clean up our dear city. I'm wondering how can we focus all these people determined to 'go green' and get them to do the most basic greening of NYC...picking up trash? Hybrid cars, solar heating, techno trash, but does any of that matter if our streets are littered with french fries and chocolate cake?
MMMM forbidden chocolate cake. Oops, sorry, got distracted there for a sec. Back to the comment, yes, thank you...great point. Take all those folks that stood in line for the Whole Foods shopping tote...did anyone walk by the store after the line let out? Trash all along the sidewalk. Yes, we should have taken pictures...but we don't carry a camera around in our work bag...but maybe we'll start doing so. But trust us...after the environmentally friendly hipsters left with their branded bags the street looked like a post-concert Grateful Dead parking lot. Just remember-- all our hipster organic friends--the first step in greening the world is cleaning your own backyard.
Saturday, July 28, 2007
Local...trash.
Show me trash and I'll show you garbage art.
That was the thinking -- we imagine -- behind Justin Gignac's entrée into the niche market of garbage art.
Friday, July 27, 2007
Clean ideas: Upcoming contest alert!
Trash-arazzi
Friday, July 27, 8:07AM
6th Avenue between Carmine St. and West 4th
Each concrete slab on the sidewalk is stained with trash. The tree-boxes along the street are littered with dirty paper plates, plastic cups, and just this morning a half-eaten bagel with what looked like scallion cream cheese. Fact: This stretch of street consistently stinks of trash. Fact: This is a very popular block in beautiful, historic Greenwich Village. A block across from the famous West 4th Street basketball courts. A block bordered by Joe's Pizza (some say the best in the City) and Father Demo Square (recently refurbished by the city) to the south and the IFC Film Center to the north. Sure, there might be one, two or five XXX DVD shops/tattoo parlors and head shops crowding this stench-filled block...but is that a valid excuse for such a smell? Each step we take we further grasp our nose, squeezing so tight by the time we've reached the F-train on the corner our nostrils are numb.
No wonder there was a rat romper room in the former Taco Bell on the block. (Was this the inspiration for that Ratatouille movie?)
Thursday, July 26, 2007
Sunny days, compacting the trash away...
Trash-arazzi
47th and Madison
That's right, Madison Avenue. A bastion of sophisticated shopping. Home to a glittering array of high-end designer flagship stores...and...TRASH. We were literally dodging old newspapers, plastic cups and pizza slice-stained paper plates. Sure we still managed to get to J. Press and score some great buys on our late summer WASP wardrobe, but seriously...what gives? What other city have you visited lately where you dodge trash...and not just along some back alley, but along one of the most famous stretches of luxury real estate in the world.
Wednesday, July 25, 2007
Trash-arazzi
Please send in your own reports each day and will post the best ones.
Wednesday, July 25, 8:06PM
Broadway and Prince
Overflowing trashcan and trash on the sidewalk
Directly in front of gourmet-purveyor Dean and Deluca and across the street from the uber-chic Prada flagship store stands an overflowing, pathetically small trash can...so much so, trash is all over the sidewalk five-feet in each direction and blowing down the block...and it smells...badly. Shouldn't Dean and Deluca care/do something? Shouldn't Prada? Shouldn't the city clean these trashcans out more often? GROSS! Oh well, at least the trash was mostly empty Fizzy Lizzy bottles, and gourmet chocolate wrappers...
Must view.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LXm2WSSVKP0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZSWv90msTUc
Dirtier than....
(*Our favorite comments will be posted.)
Welcome.
Ahh, that sweet nectar of NYC. Trash. It's everywhere. It's nasty. And there must be a solution, or several. Yes, old time New Yorkers tell us the Big Apple is cleaner now than anytime in history...well if that's the case, our history is truly pathetic.
We're exhausted from breathing out of our mouths on the way to work for fear of trashy smells penetrating our nostrils. We're tired of watching litter roll down Prince Street like sagebrush blowing along the dirt roads of Tombstone. We're sick of that greenish-brownish sludgy stuff next to the trashcan on the corner that we might have stepped in this morning spurring this Blog. And, it's time we do something.
But what to do? Letter writing is a waste of time...it is, write one, you'll see. Protesting is pointless--just read Ted Nugent's article on the Summer of Love. But in this age of viral marketing we can create a commotion. We meaning you and us. You meaning the vigilant, creative, strong New Yorker. Us meaning the "too much time on our hands" folks at Clean NYC Now.
Each day we will post idea-sparking stories, contests, quizzes, interviews, and rants (sorry, it's a blog and just like MTV reality shows having to depict hot-tub make-out sessions, we are required by the Blogger guidelines to rant.)
In return we ask for those sparked-ideas. Clean NYC Now should become a portal for ideas on how to clean up this great city of ours. Why should Sydney be cleaner? Why should Tokyo be cleaner? Why should Paris be cleaner? Why should Marrakech be cleaner - MARRAKECH! And it is...we were just there...the inner-sanctum of the darkest souk is cleaner than Houston Street on a Friday afternoon. Ugh.
We need to not only urge our politicians into action but to also give them viable solutions. Our elected officials are struggling to find answers to our trash problem. So let's give 'em some. And let's Clean NYC Now.