MAKING A MUSEUM: Materializing Regimes of Value with the NYC Department of Sanitation

As Kelly and I went over historical material for our scanning project, I found a twentysomething-year-old document from the DSNY. It mentioned that the five dirtiest neighborhoods in New York City were East Harlem, Brooklyn’s Bedford-Stuyvesant, Crown Heights and Prospect Heights, and the Bronx’s Grand Concourse. Since it was written over twenty years ago, I was curious how these neighborhoods might look today. For a three-page assignment, I figured I should choose a smaller scope, though, so I picked Grand Concourse from the list and went to check it out.

For the past few weeks I contemplated, observed, studied and simply paid very close attention to the “Garbage Mark” apparent on many sidewalks in Manhattan. This Mark (I also toyed with the name “Trash Juice Spot”, “Ick Spot, “ and, as an homage to Rathje- “Slop Spot”) came to my attention one afternoon as I was walking back to my apartment. I realized that I constantly sidestepped the “Garbage Mark” left by the bags that are carried out both from my apartment and the restaurant next door. I was acting as if the garbage was still there, and I watched in interest as a line of others stepped around the spot as well. As I began to try and shape my analysis of this Mark, a few questions came to mind. Is there more than just one answer to why people avoid the Mark? Is the Garbage Mark a neighborhood-by-neighborhood phenomenon? Are there larger implications of these permanent stains? In the end I found the answer to be yes to all of the above.