Most of New York City\u2019s trash is put out on the streets, where it\u2019s hauled away by hulking garbage trucks that can weigh more than 25 tons fully loaded.<\/p>\n
But in leafy Forest Hills Gardens, things are different. The secluded corner of Queens enjoys an amenity familiar to residents of other cities, but alien to New York: alleyways.<\/p>\n
The city sanitation department relies on a fleet of small garbage trucks that dash through the neighborhood\u2019s alleys, picking up trash from a tiny fraction of New Yorkers who put their trash bins out behind their homes \u2014 instead of in front of them.<\/p>\n
While cities like Chicago were designed with alleys to keep trash collection out of view of the general public, New York\u2019s grid plan prioritized density over back-door service. Just 65 of the city\u2019s roughly 2,000 garbage trucks are small enough to fit in alleys. Outside of Forest Hills, they can also be found operating in parts of Crown Heights and Maspeth.<\/p>\n
Officials say only about 300 of the city\u2019s roughly 120,000 blocks have alleys serviced by the sanitation department’s miniature trucks.<\/p>\n
Forest Hills Gardens resident Matt Iannuzzi said there\u2019s a whole neighborhood culture around the alleyways.<\/p>\n
Tiny alleys require tiny garbage trucks. Fortunately, the sanitation department has dozens of them.<\/p>\n
Liam Quigley \/ Gothamist<\/p>\n
\u201c\u200aThe neighbors get to know each other probably more in the alley sometimes than out in front of the house,\u201d he said. \u201c\u200aThat’s where their barbecues are, and yeah, and all their kids play in the backyards.\u201d<\/p>\n
Iannuzzi said drivers in the neighborhood need to be sure not to park their cars behind their homes on collection days to avoid jamming up the truck.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey could come out of the back door of their house and go right to their backyard, but when you have a collection behind the home, you can’t really do that,\u201d he said. \u201cSo there is a consideration. You don’t wanna block the truck in, obviously.\u201d<\/p>\n
On Thursday, Iannuzzi\u2019s neighbor Max Nevins watched one of the 10-ton alley trucks squeezing behind rowhomes near a set of Long Island Rail Road tracks. The alleyway garbage trucks might be tiny, but Nevins said it still takes a skilled driver to navigate the narrow spaces. One of the truck\u2019s paint jobs was faded from repeatedly scraping against the area\u2019s tree branches.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey do take down the power lines every now and then,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Sanitation department spokesperson Joshua Goodman said that alleyway service is a niche program the department does not plan to expand.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt presents significant challenges during snowstorms, when cars are double-parked in alleys, or with low-hanging wires,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Garbage is out of sight and out of mind in Forest Hills.<\/p>\n
Liam Quigley<\/p>\n
Alleyway collection was suspended during the recent snowstorms, forcing residents to schlep their waste to the curb like everyone else.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy neighbor got really pissed because our garbage piled up,\u201d Nevins said.<\/p>\n
In 2019, alleyway-enjoying residents of Bay Ridge sued the sanitation department after the agency tried to end their alleyway service. A judge ruled in their favor, and the back door collections continued.<\/p>\n
Goodman said there\u2019s no method to opt in to alleyway collection. He encouraged residents who currently have the service to consider asking the sanitation department to take it away.<\/p>\n
\u201cBlocks that want to ensure they receive the most reliable and consistent level of service by ceasing alley service and moving to curbside collection [like the rest of the city] can let us know any time via their community board,\u201d Goodman said.<\/p>\n
Tiny garbage trucks solve a big trash problem in a quaint corner of Queens.<\/p>\n
Liam Quigley \/ Gothamist<\/p>\n
The mini trucks only collect garbage \u2013 residents must still set their compost and recycling at the curb for collection by regular trucks.<\/p>\n
Rachel Borut, a real estate broker who has lived in Forest Hills for 20 years, said she\u2019s grateful to have the alleyway garbage pickup because it keeps the other streets cleaner.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt’s what makes our city so unique,\u201d she said. I mean, we have all these little pockets of, you know, coolness.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI feel like we have a relationship with the people that pick up the garbage,\u201d Borut said. \u201cI\u2019m very grateful. \u200aI hope they don’t take the trucks away.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Most of New York City\u2019s trash is put out on the streets, where it\u2019s hauled away by hulking…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":192040,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[9,24,63,122,124,123],"class_list":["post-192039","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-queens","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-queens","tag-queens-headlines","tag-queens-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/192039","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=192039"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/192039\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/192040"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=192039"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=192039"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=192039"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}