By Scott Etkin, West Side Rag
A new addition to the West 60s is making the neighborhood less hospitable to those four-legged, scurrying scavengers who usually make a meal of our leftovers.
The Lincoln Square Business Improvement District (BID), a nonprofit spanning W. 71st Street to W. 58th Street along Broadway, is using specialized bins to store garbage bags that are normally piled up for collection on the sidewalk. The initiative is part of the New York City Department of Sanitation’s “Clean Curbs” pilot program, which was launched by Mayor Eric Adams this past April.
“Mountains of black trash bags have long been an eyesore on New York City sidewalks, and Clean Curbs is an effort to eliminate those mountains and give sidewalk space back to New York City residents,” Vincent Gragnani, press secretary at DSNY, wrote in a statement to WSR.
This strategy, known officially as “containerized waste” (i.e., putting trash in a box), is the first line of defense in the city’s fight against the dreaded R word. “Clean Curbs gives rats fewer opportunities to feed and will take back our streetscape,” Gragnani wrote.
The Lincoln Square BID purchased two sets of five bins for two locations on the east and west sides of Broadway between 62nd and 63rd Streets. The bins are filled by the BID’s Clean Team, a maintenance crew that has 10 members working on any given day. DSNY trucks pick up the garbage on average twice per day.
“I’m a sanitation junkie,” said Monica Blum, president of the Lincoln Square BID. “I’m the type of person who goes nuts if our beautiful flower beds have one piece of litter in them.”
Since their debut in mid-October, the bins have elicited little reaction from the public, according to Blum. The bins are dark brown, about waist high, and have five sections, each secured with a padlock. There are small holes for liquid to drain out. Across both sites, the bins can all together hold approximately 40 bags of garbage.
Lincoln Square is among the first neighborhoods – along with Brooklyn Heights, Brownsville, Stapleton, Times Square and Union Square – to participate in the Clean Curbs pilot. The application process was easy, Blum said. “The hardest part was getting siting approval from the Department of Transportation,” which mandates that the bins are off the sidewalk, but not interfering with any standing zones, fire hydrants, etc. The BID was reimbursed for the cost of the bins ($13,000), and they spent another $5,000 implementing the program, she said.
The BID opted to go with bins that are smaller and darker, after seeing how dirty the lighter-colored ones could get. “I think for us it’s much better to have small ones, because they’re just less imposing. They fit in less than a parking space,” said Blum. “I think they’re cute.”
Lincoln Square BID signed a two-year maintenance agreement with DSNY, and there are a few other locations in the neighborhood that the BID would like to use bins if the City expands the program. “We have been clear that if containerization were easy, it would have been done by now. It isn’t, but we are committed to moving forward with expansion,” wrote Gragnani.
“Bottom line is there are no bags on the corners anymore,” Blum said. “So it’s great!”
