Imagine you live at the foot of the Triborough Bridge, next to the N line, along the M60 route (which goes to La Guardia), and just past a series of bars, restaurants, convenience shops, gas stations, bakeries, and laundromats. Oh, and also right by Grand Central Parkway, which is a big loud freeway. You're at a nexus of activity -- but only sort of: most of the people are in transit to somewhere else, either via bus, subway, car, taxi, or foot.
This is my immediate neighborhood in Astoria, New York. It's filthy. But if you go three blocks to the north, the houses and yards get bigger, there are more trees, and far less bustle -- and things are cleaner. A lot cleaner. To the west and east, the change is similar, though not quite as dramatic. Ditto for the south, as long as you don't follow the elevated subway line directly. (The subway line, because it attracts businesses and people, is also quite a magnet for litter.) The most obvious reason my particular neighborhood is so dirty is simple: littering has no direct consequences for the litterer. There's plenty of space under the bridge, or under the subway line, or alongside the highway. If you throw trash in one of these places, you can assume no one will yell at you. And you'd be right. The area is riddled with interstitials between private clean-up and public collection. Spaces that, because no one feels a responsibility for them, no one (seemingly on principle) will clean up. The neighborhood has a very sturdy ethic: we will keep the interior of our apartments clean and everything else can screw-off.
Such an attitude has significant drawbacks. Namely, the general outward appearance of the neighborhood is depressing. It's not dirty or dilapidated enough to be considered derelict, nor does most of the trash cause a problem, per se. But the broken window theory is in full effect. It's tempting, since there's never one traumatic moment vis-a-vis the wrappers, cups and the like, 1 to say that the visual detritus is normal, just something to get used to. But I think it's more damaging than it seems. As the weeks turn into months of looking at litter, your thoughts shift. At first, it's simply: well, there's no point in cleaning up, since everything will get dirty again. (Though, of course, this is a weak argument, since everything always gets dirty all over again. See: kitchen; see also: bathroom.) Then, there becomes the idea that there's no point in cleaning up because the place isn't worth cleaning up. It is just an embankment, or an odd triangle of pavement, after all. And here's where the trouble starts. Because if these awkward spaces aren't worth cleaning up -- then, well, soon there becomes the idea that the whole area isn't worth cleaning. Then the idea transfers to Astoria as a whole. And then maybe you think the neighborhood's probably not worth investing time and energy towards. And gradually, you start to realize that, hey, wait a second, you live there, and so what does that say about you? ...
I'm of course being a bit dramatic, but on a subtle level, I think the effect is real. It's like when you feel unpleasantly dirty, like a slobby homebody, and so you develop an uncontrollable urge to clean up your apartment. There's been months of neglect and you can't take it any more! You clean in a frenzy, stopping only for dinner. Then, it's out to the bar! ...You return home at about two in the morning. You flip on the lights. Something's amiss. You're taken unawares by the shining counter-top, the nicely-vacuumed carpet, the freshly-laundered sheets. You'd forgot. You smile. You say to yourself, This is awesome, this is a great apartment to live in. And for the next couple of weeks, while you enjoy the cleanliness, you realize how much the sloppiness had been working on your subconscious.
So then what does the following say about my neighborhood: One morning, on my way to the subway, I noticed an entire taillight on the sidewalk. I stepped over it. A block later, there was the front bumper of a taxicab resting on the curb. I stepped over it to cross the street. These items were only moderately unusual. As I mentioned, I live next to Grand Central Parkway and, as it happens, right next to a very tricky entrance/exit ramp. So there're accidents at the intersection out my window all the time. Two years ago (I'm told by my roommate) a car plowed into a faux-iron fence on the corner. It took a year and a half for the business to replace the fence. There was just an open gap in the fence. This isn't garbage, exactly, but it does seem likely that the business (a Greek futbol club) was following along with the neighborhood ethos: fixing the fence didn't really matter, so why bother? And it's not as though this is an isolated instance of nearby neglect. There's the seemingly abandoned parking lot (which is finally having a housing project built upon it), the still-extant rubble from the nearby building that burned down four years ago, the weird, semi-abandoned, probably squatted-in complex down the street, the boarded-up Tsolias bar, and a boarded up money lending service. All these things are within a block and a half of each other.
I wrote the preceding paragraphs a week ago; I've since had time to consider my ideas, as well as to actively stroll around my neighborhood, looking to see how accurate my descriptions were. Here's what I found:
1. My block is clearly marked for residential use: every house has trashcans that are kept outside, on the sidewalk at all times. We keep them on the sidewalk because our front yards are usually thin strips of pavement, separated from the sidewalk (both practically and conceptually) merely by a fence. Predictably enough, every time I take out my trash, I find that someone, fed up with carrying something or the other, has decided to place it either near, next to, or (hopefully) in my trash can.
2. Some people do sweep the sidewalks on occasion. However, there are still several problems with the current sidewalk-sweeping system, which are:
A) The sidewalk sweepers don't coordinate when they sweep, so one stretch of sidewalk will be clean, while another will be messy. Visually, then, this doesn't particularly improve the look of the neighborhood.
B) Many of the sidewalk sweepers seem to sweep the litter into the gutter. Which then means there's a filthy gutter (which does get swept by the city twice a week).
C) People only sweep/clean things in front of buildings they own and, as I mentioned earlier, there are quite a few abandoned buildings.
3. The Grand Central Parkway/Triborough Bridge is a big bugaboo in terms of litter attraction. No one ever sweeps anything near it; it may almost singlehandedly be responsible for the litter problem near my apartment.
5. The neighborhood to the north of me, which I earlier describe as "a lot cleaner" than my neighborhood, is definitely cleaner than my neighborhood. However, my perception of how much cleaner is a bit exaggerated. It's not that clean. I guess this shows how much a little extra trash goes towards making the perception of one neighborhood compared to another.
6. There are enough trees to create a significant amount of leaves in the neighborhood. However, no one rakes the leaves, mostly because no one has any grass off of which to rake them. Visually, this makes the sidewalk look much dirtier than it seems. (Assuming that leaves aren't litter or trash...)
7. Local take-out restaurants distribute fliers on a nearly daily basis, making for a lot of annoying litter. This general mucks up the potential for immaculate sidewalks in the neighborhood. (One Tex-Mex place really wants me to buy a burrito combo. They tell me about it every week!)
8. O'Brien's article interests me because he explicitly theorizes trash as a conceptual construct. In that vein, I'd like to mention how some of the issues I identify in the first half of my article can be conceived of quite differently by people with a different perspective.
A) There is a bag lady or two who goes around picking through our trash. Clearly, trashcans placed on the sidewalk are a great boon to her.
B) In a note related to A, last Sunday I threw away a kitchen trashcan (it was beyond repair) by placing it (along with some moldy curtains) inside my outdoor trash can. Two days later, I saw the very same trashcan in my neighbor's front yard, behind her fence. I have no idea what she sees in a cracked, stained, cheap-plastic kitchen trashcan with a non-functioning lid, but best of luck to her.
C) The previously mentioned rubble from the building that burned down four years ago is now home to several cats. (I like hearing these cats yowl in the evenings, so generally I myself like this abandoned space.)
D) One of the abandoned buildings near the subway line is currently being slept under by a homeless man who's taken to our neighborhood. He seems reasonably nice.
E) Clearly the fliers from the take-out restaurants give someone a job as a distributor. Also, menu designers and paper companies are involved with this as well.
So those are the bulk of my findings. Overall, I don't feel like the casual litter is a huge problem, but it could be improved. There's a lot of talk in Rubbish! about the inevitability of trash. I agree. But how can we visibly hide the trash, while still making it clear where the trash should be placed? Can neighborhood aesthetics be improved? How can we reduce litter? Socially/psychologically, how much is it worth our effort to try to hide our trash? In the Calvino reading he mentioned that Paris has an unenforced law that trashcans can't be put onto the street until after dark the night before pick-up. This type of law demonstrates that there's definitely interest in keeping trash out of sight and out of mind, even as there's an interest in having it picked up. Certainly, as an Astorian, I feel this way: I want my trash gone, I want my neighborhood clean, and I want to think about the whole issue as little as possible. The best trash removal system, after all, is the one that works so well and so smoothly that it goes unnoticed.
Endnotes:
1. Expect perhaps the moment you arrive (as I did) via minivan from Minneapolis, having never seen the neighborhood before and having already signed a lease. That is frightening.
Related Photographs:
The mighty Triborough looms... This is the beginning of the neighborhood I'm discussing. (Photograph taken from elevated Astoria Blvd Subway Stop at 3:30 on Oct. 4, 2007)
This gives you a better idea of the businesses and busy-ness of the area. My street (27th Street) is on the left side, a few buildings past the construction site. (Photograph taken from elevated Astoria Blvd Subway Stop at 3:30 on Oct. 4, 2007)
This patch of grass/bricks is always filthy and I always pass it on the way home from the subway stop. It is what impelled me to write about the topic of litter in my neighborhood. (Photograph taken from Hoyt Avenue South, just south of 31st at 3:31 on Oct. 4, 2007)
The phone booths are also always filthy. (Incidentally, the pay phone is becoming obsolete in many place. Except in New York City, where advertisers love to use the exteriors for their pitches, at least according to the New York Times. Even though the booths create revenue for the city, in some ways they do seem to be a nuisance.) (Photograph taken from Hoyt Avenue South, just south of 31st at 3:33 on Oct. 4, 2007)
This business has been abandonded since I moved in, thirteen months ago. It's opposite the phone booth above. (Photograph taken from Hoyt Avenue South, just south of 31st at 3:33 on Oct. 4, 2007)
Those who do sweep their sidewalk often sweep it directly into the gutter. Pigeons love this. Eat up, pigeon! (Photograph taken from Hoyt Avenue South, just south of 31st at 3:33 on Oct. 4, 2007)
This is where a homeless man sleeps. You can see the cardboard he uses for a pillow and his cigarette butts. During the day he usually sits on a nearby stoop and talks to passersby. (Photograph taken from Hoyt Avenue South, just north of 28th Street at 3:35 on Oct. 4, 2007)
Here is the building that burned down four years ago. Cats now make use of the area. The white building on the right behind the trees is my apartment. (Photograph taken from Hoyt Avenue South, just north of 27th Street at 3:37 on Oct. 4, 2007)
Here is a view of my street (27th Street), just to give you an idea of where I live precisely. All the previous pictures were taken along the street that comes into the intersection from the left-hand side. I'm standing with my back literally against the Triborough Bridge. (Photograph taken from intersection of Hoyt Avenue South and 27th Street at 3:15 on Oct. 4, 2007)
Here you can see that we keep our trash cans on the sidewalk. (Photograph taken in front of 2509 27th Street at 3:12 on Oct. 4, 2007)
Here is an abandoned (and broken) television and air conditioner. This is at an area adjacent to my apartment, directly next to the Triborough Bridge. (You can see the elevated subway stop where I started in the distance, up the street.) Clearly, no one maintains the space; the weeds are out of control. (Photograph taken south of intersection of Hoyt Avenue South and 27th Street at 3:13 on Oct. 4, 2007)
Here is a tunnel under the foot of the Triborough Bridge. Again, it's an interstitial space, one that no one has any interest in maintaining. (Photograph on 27th Street between Hoyt Avenue South and Hoyt Avenue North at 3:13 on Oct. 4, 2007)
Okay, that's it for my ethnography. If you have any questions or comments, please let me know...