The new mayor’s crescendo was thrilling as usual. In his 100-day speech, when Zohran Mamdani started talking trash, I became elated.
“Trash bags clutter our streets and sidewalks,” our mayor began. “Rats and vermin never have to look far for their next meal. In the wealthiest city in the wealthiest nation in the history of the world, no one should have to live surrounded by garbage.”
Agreed!
I do indeed live surrounded by garbage. My husband, sons and I live in a condo of a three-unit gut-renovated brownstone between Broadway and Amsterdam in West Harlem. This is Manhattan Community Board 9, the very neighborhood where former Mayor Adams’ rat-proof trash-containerization pilot program began in April 2024.
Adams’ original pilot program (before the slick Empire Bins and NYC Wheelie Bins of today) featured flappy street-stationed containers that dotted our blocks. They were community-wide, meaning all residents could use them. Life was good, socialist like. There was a caveat, however. Smaller buildings (1-9 units) had the option to use the on-street containers or not, so the rats stuck around. Anyone could see this by walking down our sidewalks.
But a year later, Adams suddenly removed those street containers. He replaced them with large Empire Bins last June. But these Empire Bins were only for bigger buildings. Us smaller buildings had to buy the NYC Wheelie Bins for $55 or face fines. These Wheelie Bins have a loose floppy latch, no match for rats.
My family lives on the ground-floor mid-block of 149th Street. We enter our home down some steps, a few strides across a small front patio and under an iron gate below our front stoop. Crossing our patio, we make our way between garbage cans, i.e. NYC Wheelie Bins.
Since last June, with the Empire Bins and NYC Wheelie Bins in full force, we have lived among garbage just as we did pre-pilot program. On most days, our street is occupied by Wheelie Bins, overflowing or emptied and tossed about. Often, along our sidewalks, are stuffed trash bags (that didn’t fit into the Wheelie Bins), blue bins for cans, clear bags of paper, compost bins of food, rats and roaches. The rats still come, dipping in and out of the floppy-latch lids of the wheelies, scratching into trash bags. The roaches are now returning from their winter break.
All this, and somehow we in West Harlem are the paradigm of rat-proof trash containerization.
“And for a brief moment, it seemed like we wouldn’t (live surrounded by garbage),” Mamdani continued. “In 2024, voters overwhelmingly supported moving forward with trash containerization. Empire Bins were rolled out in Harlem. They were promised in Brooklyn. And then, as so many New Yorkers have come to expect from government, the momentum stalled. … No funds set aside to make it real. The promise was empty. The only thing that should be empty in New York City are our sidewalks of trash.”
Yet nothing will change for us in brownstones, old storefronts and small tenements. Meanwhile, landlords of medium-size buildings can still opt into the Empire Bins or not. Please do empty our sidewalks of trash.
Why do bigger buildings get to use the on-street containers and not us smallest residential buildings? Why are we owners of small buildings paying for “new containers to store that trash, and new trucks to pick it up” that only bigger landlords get to use?
Mayor Mamdani. Please. Walk down our streets. At least, give us a key to the Empire Bins.
Hoyt is an artist who lives in a W. 149th St. condo with her husband and two teen sons.