We Are NOT Blighted! Don't Dump On Us!

We Are NOT Blighted! Don't Dump On Us!, originally uploaded by threecee.

today was the first (and hopefully the last) day of a volunteer clean up of a notoriously neglected and garbage-strewn stretch of Pacific Street. Pacific Street from Flatbush to Vanderbilt Avenues runs along the southern edge of the Vanderbilt Yards, the Metropolitian Transportation Authority's (MTA) storage depot for its Long Island Railroad (LIRR) trains, and most of Pacific Street would be demapped and would run down the middle of the proposed Atlantic Yards development.

by law, a New York City property owner is responsible for cleaning up the sidewalk in front of their property, even if the owner is not responsible for causing the mess. as this stretch of Pacific Street runs along the MTA's railyard, the MTA, a New York state entity, and therefore the State of New York, is responsible for keeping this sidewalk clean. unfortunately, sidewalk cleaning rarely, if ever, happens. just on the short walk on Pacific Street from 6th to 5th Avenue today i saw a tire, carpeting, many bottles and cans, broken glass, broken furniture, a mattress, construction scraps, clothes, shoes, fast food wrappers and dog shit. that's when i could actually see what was under the 4-foot tall weeds. i didn't want to look too closely, fearing there's probably much worse.

today's clean up effort focused on the block of Pacific between 5th and 6th Avenues. i wasn't able to get there until the last half hour, so my contribution will be these photos.

my thanks to all those who got out there and braved unknown liquids in bottles, shards of glass and feces to clean up that which the MTA should have taken care of long ago.

let's hope that this effort will shame the MTA to clean up its act, but judging from its history, i'm not holding my breath.