News from
Trash-talking New Yorkers come
together to clean up NYC, litter-ally
BEN FRACTENBERG/THE CITY Gregory Baggett helps clean A. Philip Randolph Square in West Harlem, Sept. 22, 2020.
BY RACHEL HOLLIDAY SMITH
THE CITY
Gregory Baggett never thought he’d
be on trash duty. But lately, in the
COVID-19 era, he’s found himself
among New Yorkers rolling up their sleeves
— and rolling out the trash bins.
A Harlemite since 1980, he knows his
block and his neighbors well. So when litter
started piling up this summer, he took note,
and took matters into his own hands.
“I used to be a kid who didn’t even like
to get dirty,” said Baggett, an academic,
writer and consultant. “I never would have
thought that I would be out there, moving
around the community with a garbage can.
But, you know, there’s a lot of people cheering
you on. They fi gure out what you’re up
to and they pitch in.”
Now, he’s out on his block at least once a
week, helping to clean A. Philip Randolph
Square at West 117th Street and St. Nicholas
Avenue. He started the clean-up effort
in mid-August with a handful of neighbors,
but it’s grown from there, and he’s even
seen a few passersby join in.
Recently, a pair of friends doing a
“meditation walk” near the park joined the
cleaning crew, he said, and a woman who
Baggett says appears unhoused often grabs
a bag and helps. Another woman nearby
the square told him, “ring my bell for hot
water if you need it,” he said.
“To be quite honest with you, the clean-up
has been a mechanism that has kind of returned
the community to the space,” he said.
On a recent Tuesday morning, he was
joined by a half dozen other volunteers who
clipped overgrown tree beds, swept leaves
and plucked litter out of bushes.
“It’s like hunting for Easter eggs,” said
Charline Shaw, one of Baggett’s neighbors,
as she cheerfully put a large, empty liquor
bottle into an oversized garbage bag.
Volunteer clean-up events in New York
are nothing new. But with budget cuts to
both the Parks and Sanitation departments
and growing complaints of a drop in trash
pick-ups across the city, a spate of citizen
cleaning crews have popped up all over.
Volunteerism the New Normal
Mayor Bill de Blasio urged New Yorkers
to volunteer to help clean the city earlier
this month, and a City Hall spokesperson
directed New Yorkers interested in getting
involved to do so through the Department
of Sanitation website or by calling 311.
For street clean-ups, the Sanitation
Department runs a number of volunteer
efforts, including the Community Cleanup
Tool Loan Program, which provides
brooms, dustpans and trash bags to any
organization that volunteers.
The department says that, as of September,
74 clean-ups took place through that
program — up from the 43 that took place
all of last year.
“We appreciate that New Yorkers are
stepping up to do their part to keep their
neighborhoods clean,” said Joshua Goodman,
a spokesperson for the Department
of Sanitation. He added that besides volunteering,
“the next best thing everyone can
do is use litter baskets properly.
“It’s important to remember that they
are for small trash while walking, like a
candy wrapper or a coffee cup, and that
throwing household or business trash in
them is illegal,” he said.
De Blasio promised in mid-September
to restore some sanitation services, including
funding for litter basket trucks in 65
neighborhoods.
Clean-up volunteer Maria Lizardo,
executive director of the nonprofi t NMIC
(formerly the Northern Manhattan
Improvement Corporation) has done her
part in upper Manhattan, cleaning up her
neighborhood as part of an effort organized
by Congressman Adriano Espaillat.
But she is careful to note that volunteering
means giving City Hall a pass.
“We’re going to keep the pressure on and
do advocacy to make sure that budgets are
restored, particularly in low-income communities,”
she said.
“It’s not letting them off the hook. But
it’s really about building that sentiment in
the community — you know, this is our
home, we have to protect it, and we have
to take care of it,” she said.
In Harlem, Baggett is hoping to fi nd
more volunteers, expand the cleaning effort
to other small parks along St. Nicholas
Avenue — and, perhaps, make it a regular
thing, post-pandemic.
“This is a quiet project … but it’s very
rewarding and fulfi lling, “ he said. “I think
we should try and keep going, even after
whatever semblance of normalcy returns.”
This story was fi rst published on Sept.
28, 2020, by THE CITY, an independent,
nonprofi t news outlet dedicated to hardhitting
reporting that serves the people of
New York.
14 October 1, 2020 Schneps Media