Nagle: The museum will be a place where you walk in the door, and it’s bright. A Filthy History: When New Yorkers Lived Knee-Deep in Trash. My grandmother sat contented in her Adirondack chair, nearby watching me. Via National Geographic. The majority of my employment was in household collection and operating mechanical sweepers threw out the city. Nagle’s research covers all the complexities of our sanitation situation, from landfill archaeology to the integration of women in a male-dominated profession. But we are also unaware, we meaning just the general public, the people at large. Good article, but I question this assertion: “last place east of the Mississippi where you can be five miles from a paved road”. Your email (will not be published) (required). I totally agree with Robin that “a better connection to our garbage’s afterlife might help curb our monstrous waste.” Most of us are totally oblivious to where it goes, how it goes there, and whose life it impacts along the way or in the end. Throughout its history, the term "big apple" has always come down to simply mean the best and biggest of places to be, and New York City has long lived up to its nickname. Nagle: The department of sanitation started out in the public eye because it was such a remarkable difference: The before and after was stark. He said to everyone in the department, “You start with a clean slate with me. I really did have a sense that, except for the path at our feet, surely no human being had ever been in this place. By Annie Garau. At the time, I was even more goofily idealistic than I am now. Today in NYC, the trash walks upright and advocates ATM for 3rd grade education cirric. A view of Fresh Kills landfill on Staten Island, circa 1950. So Waring set that in place, and then he went after the filthiest corners of the whole city, which were the poorest neighborhoods, because wealthier districts had been hiring their own private cleaning companies for years. The first of Simpson’s Gilded Age Mystery series, What the Dead Leave Behind opens amidst the infamous blizzard of 1888, which killed more than 200 New Yorkers and buried the city under feet of snow. In its early days, the department didn’t really function at all. Discover unexpected relationships between popular figures when you explore our collection of famous groups on Bio.com. One of Nagle’s most disturbing revelations is that a career in sanitation is more dangerous than working for the fire or police department, despite a clear absence of public appreciation for our garbage men and women. So even the organics in there are not necessarily decomposing. In New York at the end of the 19th century, it was not uncommon for dead animals to lie on the streets for weeks. In the U.S., the most wasteful country per capita, each citizen throws away an average of 7.1 pounds per day, according to garbage guru Edward Humes. The other two categories are commercial, which is businesses and restaurants and whatnot, and then what’s called “C & D,” or construction and demolition debris. Often these were kids whose parents spoke no English, so they were helping to inculturate an older generation with these new practices, teaching them that you don’t litter or throw your garbage on the street. “A mid-1950s campaign to prevent littering in New York included a gigantic waste basket in Times Square” I love that the first sanitation workers wore white to signify hygiene. In terms of the bigger public issue, when cities talk about larger themes of city life like education and policing and environmental well-being, they need make sure whoever is in charge of the garbage is mentioned, and standing next to the mayor along with the police commissioner and in the headshot of the officials and woven into casual conversation from elected officials about important city infrastructure issues. Updated April 5, 2019. That suggests to me that there was never a golden age in NYC during which people were safe. “Our own history is with us all the time, right under foot, but we don’t know it because it’s literally buried.”, Mayor Strong reached out to a Civil War officer, a veteran and a self-titled “sanitary engineer” and a bit of a showman, named George Waring. But generally, until 1986, women were only part of the formal work of solid waste management in small ways. Write letters to the editor, “Hey, I saw my sanitation guys today doing a fantastic job, just wanted to give them a shout-out.” They certainly get the letters when they aren’t doing a good job. http://www.nyc.gov/html/nycwasteless/downloads/pdf/rrr-kit/chapter1_K-1.pdf. Nagle: The mission today, in a sense, is exactly the same as it’s always been—sweep the streets, collect the garbage, figure out how to pick it up and where to put it down. Therefore, it’s almost like the department is a victim of its own success. I want it to be a place where the department would use it freely. It’s bucolic. Once you visit this seven-mile-long city, you'll truly understand why it's called the Capital of the World and the Big Apple. Nagle: You know how there are nutrition labels on food? 30 years ago seems short to me, since I can never forget the incessant need to patch my bicycle inner tubes. They worked as what we might call either an activist group or a lobbyist group, pressuring local politicians to address the problems. That’s an impossible job. He also put them in the helmets that the police wore to signify authority, and they quickly were nicknamed the White Wings. It would be thrown in the street. Then he spread out from there, and he wasn’t afraid to fire people if they didn’t do their work. The coronavirus vaccine is dwindling, but Gov. New Yorkers once took pride in sanitation, as evidenced by the department’s participation in many public parades and ceremonies. Author: Elizabeth Nix. The epitome of old-school New York Latin class, Palladium Dance Hall hosted everyone from Celia Cruz, the most famous Cuban songstress of all time, to Desi Arnaz to a … The June 22, 1895, edition of Harper’s Weekly compared photos of the same street corners two years earlier to show what an incredible transformation street cleaning had effected. And they were smart. In October, in-contract deals rose to peak home-shopping season levels, with Brooklyn hitting a new record of 824 pending sales. As a kid, I was just flabbergasted. So do you tell them, recycle your water bottle and you will save the planet? In Chicago, the reformer Jane Addams was the first commissioner of street cleaning, so she was part of its effort to formalize street cleaning work. I have followed Robin’s work for years and applaud her for acknowledging the transformation of the how garbage is handled in NYC. One day I shoveled about 8 inches of dirt from a hole I was busy with. The history of New York City (1855–1897) started with the inauguration in 1855 of Fernando Wood as the first mayor from Tammany Hall, an institution that dominated the city throughout this period.Reforms led to the New York City Police Riot of June 1857. All of Manhattan’s trash was going out of the city by the time Fresh Kills closed in March of 2001. Hizhonnor being at the head of the line. Andrew Cuomo drove from Albany to New York City right after telling New Yorkers to "stay home and off the roads" due to the snowstorm Monday. Or where their computer components were made? Kudos to the interviewer for the interesting questions – and Mr. Robin is a highly knowledgeable person with great responses. There was chaos during the American Civil War, with major rioting in the New York Draft Riots. When I throw an object out, it still has a life, and it now activates this complex network of protocols and systems and controversies. at the six worst blizzards in New York City history. And there’s no smell, unless you count wildflowers and sometimes that lovely, mucky smell at low tide that’s normal on any estuary. It was a very easy source of plunder. And they were right. It might have truck components arranged in a way that looks like abstract art. 1. It also had a ripple effect across all different areas of the city. A rendering of the Fresh Kills Park project, currently underway on the site of New York City’s former Staten Island landfill. By Hunter Oatman-Stanford The New York Draft Riots occurred in July 1863, when the anger of working-class New Yorkers over a new federal draft law during the Civil War sparked five days I remember Sanitation Water Trucks washing down NYC streets at night, but not anymore- Why not? A guy named William Strong took over as mayor, and he swore to appoint people of integrity as his commissioners. It would have temporary exhibitions that would tell the many stories about sanitation, about the workers themselves, about the politics of the job, about the corruption in the past, about the environmental impacts. From Pullman, Illinois, to Hershey, Pennsylvania, learn about life in towns built and once controlled by a single company. But I think we’ve been taught to ignore those kinds of things. Nagle: Sure. Then the question is, what are the next steps? In no time, her songs became a rage and were charting at no.1 in America. Wonderful article about Robin Nagle’s work. Waring said to his men, “You keep going back. Nagle: Yes, but it’s now a remarkable park. Since the late 19th century, snow removal has always been part of the sanitation department’s mission and is one of the job’s most visible duties. Mortality rates went down. We recently spoke with Nagle about the hidden life of trash and the complicated business of managing it. Buyers have already made a swift comeback since the reopening of the NYC economy this summer, driving brisk home sales this fall. They picked very specific issues, like the gigantic dung heap somewhere in the ’40s on the East River. Those are small things, but they make a big difference. Who did they think was going to pick up after them? If you are interested in learning more about how you can reduce waste, check out http://www.wehatetowaste.com. I also want it to be a community space so that groups can meet there for various causes, or maybe we can have a film festival of garbage-themed films. How do we prevent this bottle from coming into being in the first place? In 2021, New Yorkers with the means will take advantage of the unusual market, fueling a busy year for home sales. Check out our look back (complete with insane photos!) If you want to see a clean place, check out Pasadena, they pressure-clean downtown EVERY NIGHT. So the trash itself is dangerous. Sanitation is also supposed to be responsible for waste reduction overall, which is a little puzzling to me. When you’re working in and out of traffic all day, and you’re working with a piece of equipment that people only acknowledge because they want to get around it. In a nutshell, that’s the job, plus plowing the snow, which has always been part of the department’s mandate. And from that point forward, they’ve been turning it into a park, very thoughtfully, I might add. I’m sorry but that is hogwash. The entire project is made invisible, and you only notice it in the gap, in the absence. She examined it and remarked, “that’s an old piece of china.” I wasn’t aware that her family had buried almost all their trash in our yard for the past 50 years.