By Bob Tannenhauser
Jessica Tisch, commissioner of the New York City Department of Sanitation, will speak and answer questions from the audience at a virtual forum focusing on “Sanitation on the UWS,” on Wednesday, September 21st, at 6:30 pm. The forum is hosted by the UWS Coalition of Block Associations & Community Groups.
Topic: UWS Sanitation – Talking Trash with Commissioner Tisch
Guests: Jessica Tisch, Commissioner of the New York City Department of Sanitation
Date & Time: Wednesday, September 21, 2022, 6:30 PM
Submit Questions: If you’d like to share questions before the meeting, submit them to: upperwestsidecoalition@gmail.com NOTE: As many questions as time permits will be answered.
YouTube Link: Click here to watch the YouTube live stream or copy/paste this URL into your browser: https://youtu.be/WtXJwiFvQQo (advance registration not required)
We need multiple trash receptacles at busy intersections (like 72nd and Broadway). Three or 4 in a row. Boston does this on Boylston street and it works well. It’s easy to tell where the problem corners are. No addition labor cost. Just add more cans.
I don’t disagree with you necessarily, but there is a labor and time cost to unloading each can. With the bonkers ways NYC structures municipal employee compensation, it wouldn’t be surprising if each incremental trash can cost thousands per year just to empty.
There was talk of a block association on 72nd street a few months ago. A citizen trash cleanup from CPW to Riverside on 72nd would be great to set the tone for the block.
“There’s a labor and time cost to unloading each can”. There’s much more of a labor and time cost to picking up trash that’s strewn all over the street/sidewalk because the can is overflowing. Let’s get real: we are going to have to spend more on trash pickup. Period.
…..or you take money away from agencies that spend it on things like HORSES (NYPD, Parks) and put it to cleaner streets
NYC needs to go back to metal trash cans , , , rats just make holes through the current plastic ones.
Isn’t there a movement afoot to have that very thing happen? Aren’t they being replace by steel? I’m sure I read an article to that effect either here or in The Times.
I’m not aware of such, but I’d back that plan 100%!
Metal cans make a lot of extra noise.
I will take noise over rats anyday!
Sanitation is asleep on the job. Amsterdam Ave from 72 up through the 80s is filthy, and Columbus isn’t much better. The restaurants are the main culprit: trash bags are left out all night, torn open, sidewalks uncleaned, loose litter everywhere, dog feces smeared all over the street. Trash receptacles are not emptied *nearly* enough
But hey, completely unsurprising from an agency headed by someone responsible for the biggest IT debacle in the NYPD’s history.
G
Improving our neighborhood’s cleanliness can start with getting rid of street parking.
The space that cars take up (all that space, given away free!!) is a public utility. Instead of giving away street parking as a handout to the ultra minority (20%) of Upper West Siders with cars, let’s take that space and expand the sidewalks.
Larger sidewalks mean more efficient trash removal.
Right now, pedestrians and trash share the same narrow walkway.
Those who choose to have cars should pay for them to be in a garage, and the rest of us can enjoy cleaner streets, a healthier lifestyle, and a more pleasant neighborhood.
If you’re curious about how we can all benefit from no street parking, read more at nyc25x25.org
Having no street parking while MTA wants to cut transit service from the outer boros despite getting congestion pricing is backwards. The urbanists love to talk about ending exclusionary policies, but perpetuate exclusionary policies with THEM in charge and bullying people into silence. Street parking isn’t a giveaway to 24% of UWSers, there are workers and business owners who live in parts of our metropolitan area with subpar transit that isn’t being improved who use those spots. Transit doesn’t work for everybody and uber/lyft who donate to transportation alternatives also doesn’t work for everybody.
1. Depressing that in an affluent neighborhood, so many people leave their trash around – Starbucks cups, pizza boxes etc.
2. The restaurant street shacks need to go – they generate garbage and rats.
Has mandatory recycling ended? My building has lots of students and new tenants but no signs on how to separate recyclables, so collectors spend hours on the street sorting cans and bottles and paper that should have been sorted in house. What are responsibilities of building owners, supers, re sorting before collection day?
Clean up the dog poop, and heavily fine anyone found not picking up.
How about the massive amount of dog piss? Disgusting. .. The stench.. Yuck. and all those people with dogs on really long leaches.. Incredible .. Go live in the suburbs if you’re so irresponsible.. So selfish.
saymoi,
Sadly the “new normal” on the West Side is people letting their dogs pee on schools, churches, synagogues, at Lincoln Center….Unbelievable.
The rats are a big problem — I see them on the pedestrian walkways even during the day. And the garbage needs to be picked up more often — over the weekend, trash cans overflow. It doesn’t help that the homeless population eats and throws their trash on the ground — not even in the trash, and they pick through the trash searching for cans to turn in for cash. It’s a nightmare and the UWS has become a pigsty.
She needs to hear from us? Like, she doesn’t walk the streets and see for herself what a pigsty the city is? She doesn’t ask herself if this is what a world-class city should look like?
You are so right! We have continually called 311 and formally complained about the eyesore in front of Fairway on 74-75 th st. The empty pallets attract rats and roaches; the curb is completely blocked and Insta-cart has some illegal deal with the store whereby they double park, take up a lane on Broadway and just wait until they have enough calls to service customers. AND THEN who thought it was a good idea to place 3 can recycling machines in front of
the store? The filthy garbage bags they create, not to mention the fights …no other city could be so stupid to allow this. The Upper East side would never permit this. Half my building has moved out to East side. And the response to us by 311 NO PROBLEM according to sanitation Dept. Looks just fine. We give up.
“The Upper East side would never permit this,” You are preaching to the choir. Why, pray tell, is the East side so much cleaner than the West side? I genuinely don’t understand and would like to hear from someone who knows.
How about mandating stores that generate excessively grotesque street-piled garbage deploy and maintain their own trash receptacles? Shake Shack already does this on 77th st. . Piles of garbage every night all around the overflowing trash bins by McDonald’s and the filthy pizzeria on 71st. Con’t even walk my dog on the block because of the rats. Same thing, sometimes worse by Gray’s Papaya and Pizza Connection across the street. I could go on, but it’s everywhere. “You break it, you fix it” , is not a difficult concept, and it’s fair.
Well I hope they saved money by moving trash pick up later in the morning. What used to be 3am to 5am here is now 6am to 8am. Causes more traffic, but I hope it saves us money at least.
Alternate side parking going back to twice a week has enormously benefited workers who work on the UWS by encouraging turnover of parking.
1. There is so much chain and fast food – Starbucks, Sweetgreen etc – and so much garbage generated which people just leave on overflowing trash cans. Folks need to take some responsibility.
2. Restaurant street shacks (free space for private business) generating garbage and rats – the restaurant shacks need to go