Fun with trash

From the Queens Courier:

One Astoria resident is getting a snapshot of what some have called an ongoing problem in the neighborhood.

What started first as a joke in July after the Astorian, who wishes to remain anonymous, noticed she had too many photos of trash on her phone has now become an Instagram account with 111 followers featuring “interesting trash” found on the streets of the western Queens neighborhood.

“Once you start looking for trash in this neighborhood you find a lot,” she said. “It’s not meant to be down on Astoria, it’s just a fun way to show there is a problem.”

The Instagram account called “astoriatrash” includes photos taken by the Astoria local and also submissions from neighbors and other residents, making it what she calls “a community effort.”

Here's something she might have "fun" with:

Notice how it says "no dumping" on the wall, yet clearly several people (or one repeat offender) failed to heed the message.

Stay classy, Queens.

Someone drank the Hater-ade

Just wanted to bring your attention to this unintentionally hilarious article from Greenpointers that was meant to put me in my place. Choice excerpts are below:

Masbeth? Where the hell is that? Furthermore, Miss Heather never implied embezzlement and I never said that the boat club was paying one of their members to paint a mural. I said a member of the boat club was receiving money to paint a mural along Newtown Creek in Maspeth. Dear readers, guess where that money is coming from?

Okay. "As per a vote" the boathouse came in 3rd place. The mystery lies in how it pole-vaulted over its competition into first. Many feel that the outcome was predetermined and that the vote was just an exercise in futility. There are members of the Newtown Creek Alliance who were kept in the dark about the new proposed location of the boathouse - until Miss Heather posted it on her blog. Why is that?

The remaining $7? No. Not even the remaining $7M, which is what I assume they were trying to say. There was $7M LEFT after administrative fees were deducted and millions were given to NYSERDA for distribution. The $3M set aside for the boathouse came from THAT. They are basically sitting on half the pot of dough that was to be allocated for parks projects.

Geoggrey Croft? Holy mackerel.

What they tried to do with this blog post is really interesting: they tried to make this a matter of nasty bloggers vs. the angelic boat club and not what this is really about - a handful of people within not-for-profits in Brooklyn that seem to be procuring and kicking each other public money. A nauseating daisy chain of sorts.

The funny thing is that after you finish mentally correcting all the mistakes contained in that poorly written article, you quickly come to the conclusion that they did not refute anything that either Miss Heather or I wrote. So you gotta wonder what the point was.

It's entirely possible that the editor of Greenpointers (a Middle Village native that moved to Greenpoint, purchased Greenpointers, turned it into a blog whose content is quite pro-gentrification and then was dismayed when she could no longer afford to live there...she now lives in Ridgewood) was "preoccupied" while editing this sloppy piece. Why do I say that? Because she wrote a post on Valentine's Day letting the world know just how much she loves smoking marijuana.

This is the same person who applied for a ridiculous amount of environmental settlement funds to author a website about living healthy:

You can't make this shit up, folks.

I thought you would enjoy seeing the North Brooklyn Boat Club in action this past weekend:

Not much educating going on, but there's a bonfire, plenty of beverages and Lord knows what's going on in that sink.

I can see why this group should get $3M in environmental funds to build a clubhouse inside a hotel.

Mind you, the plans for the construction of the hotel have been stalled since December 2013.

Looking at this alley and knowing how much public money is being poured into it, doesn't it make you feel like you're living in Bizarro World?

If I'm a "hater" because I am sick of underhanded tweeding attempts that exploit communities and waste our tax dollars and have no problem making my feelings known, then I proudly accept the moniker. It certainly beats making excuses for the lack of transparency of the Commodore and his associates.

Thankfully, Curbed and its commenters see through the B.S.

Sanitation says to put all trash in front of house during snow

From NY1:

When the city resumed trash pickup last week residents who share this alleyway between 28th and 29th streets assumed this garbage would be gone by the weekend, but it was still there Monday afternoon.

The Department of Sanitation is aware of the problem and says the alleyway is on a list of locations to be addressed.

The department also pointed out that garbage pickup in alleyways like these are suspended when there is snow and ice. They are not public thoroughfares, so they're not salted or plowed and that could make it dangerous for sanitation workers.

Residents are asked to put the trash in front of their homes during the snow season instead.

Who is responsible for plowing a community driveway?

Hey crapper-

I've got a good story for you, with many guilty parties - both city government and snobbish homeowners play a role, with hapless renters of course being screwed.

Over here in Astoria, there are a ton of alleyways. Household trash is picked up in these alleyways instead of out front on the street like most other parts of the city. Let's say you're a renter who doesn't have direct access to the alleyway - you have to carry your trash to the nearest alley leading behind your house and leave it behind the house.

Carrying your trash all over the way around the block is annoying enough on the best of days, but in the winter it is absolutely batshit horrible. Absolutely none of the homeowners shovel the alleyways. The city has the alleyways listed on their snow removal map - but they absolutely never plow them - EVER. I've lived over here for a good 10 years and have never seen a single homeowner so much as shovel the space directly behind their houses. There is no drainage at all - so even when the snow melts it just pools in potholes (that no one fixes) and then ices over so every alleyway is just a long stretch of ice ice and more ice. It is very similar to trying to walk around Willets Point - you have to watch your step and pray you don't slip and fall - because unlike willets point no one will see you fall and you could end up laying there for who-knows-how long for someone to notice. You could hit your head and die back there and not be found until the next trash pickup day.

At the very least, this is a large lawsuit waiting to happen.

The problem is that no one knows who actually owns these alleyways - none of the homeowners will admit it falls into their property line and the city never maintains them. I'm surprised the local trash men haven't complained to their superiors because they unfortunately have to walk and drive through twice a week collecting the trash. If and when they fall and go on disability, who's stuck paying the bill? You and I.

I know there's quite a few other neighborhoods in the city where trash is removed via alleyways - do they have the same problem we have, or is this just another huge example of astoria property owners who refuse to shovel anything, the city hall not giving a crap about Queens?

Do me a favor if you run with this - leave my name out of it since unfortunately I have to live over here a little while longer and have no desire to deal with these asshole homeowners in person. Everyone knows everyone around here. When you complain to them, they all pretend to not know English and then gossip to their neighbors at the local private social club.

-Anonymous

PS: attachments: a map of where the alleys are, and of course photos. The map is of course NYC's plowing map, screen grabbed direct from their website. The red lines are where the alleyways are. There's probably hundreds of homes here where you have to go to the alley to leave the trash, and only residents on the first floor have access to the alley without walking all over to get back there...

True beautification or lipstick on a pig?

"An heroic effort to beautify one of the town's seediest back alleys.



But it didn't take long for delivery scooters to crap up the view." - The Flushing Phantom