Clean streets, clean curbs, and clean sidewalks make the neighborhood a wonderful place to live, visit, shop, and dine. The Lincoln Square BID’s Clean team work diligently to keep Lincoln Square looking its best.
Lincoln Square is one of the City’s most highly trafficked areas. Each year, over 25 million pedestrians use its sidewalks and public spaces. Consequently, the BID spends approximately 50% of its annual budget on maintenance and public improvements.
In winter months, the diligent crew, contracted through Streetplus, shovel titanic masses of heavy snow from crosswalks, catch basins, fire hydrants, bus shelters and Lincoln Square’s 10 Broadway islands or “malls”. In the heat of summer, the team picks up brooms and sweeps sidewalks going 18 inches from the curb into the street.
No matter the weather, area trash receptacles are emptied daily and park benches, tables and chairs are wiped clean. Wielding paint and scrub brushes, the crew banishes graffiti, scrubs trash receptacles and paints lampposts, parking meters and street sign poles.
A crew of Green Keepers hired through the Goddard Riverside Community center, a wonderful local services organization, aids the Clean Team in maintaining the Broadway Malls.
Clean Team stats
- 125
- Trash receptacles cleaned and serviced daily
- 1,150
- tons of public litter bagged each year
- 215
- Lampposts / 167 parking meters / 137 street sign poles painted
- 93
- Fire hydrants and 76 catch basins cleared of snow during snow storms
The BID is at the forefront of City programs created to help neighborhood sidewalks and streets stay clean and safe. Several years ago, we signed up as participants in the Department of Sanitation’s new recycling bin program. In 2022, we applied for the City’s Clean Curbs Pilot Program, which aims to help reduce the number of trash bags that get placed on our sidewalks. With the help of the Department of Sanitation we purchased our first Citibins, rodent-proof containers, which we had installed in the road bed at two locations on Broadway.
The bags are placed in the bins by our Clean Team while they await collection by the Department of Sanitation. The BID has now installed a total of 6 Citibins which, along with 125 BID branded Victor Stanley trash and 5 Bid Belly solar powered trash compacting and recycling receptacles, help keep our sidewalks pristine and free of trash.