Most Chicagoans have never been to New York City. That's too bad. I know the local fashion is to despise the place, sight unseen. But I have been there, many times, for business and pleasure. New York is not without its allures. Manhattan has an energy that generally eludes Chicago. There is interesting architecture, a noteworthy theater scene and numerous good restaurants.
True, the place is provincial as hell. I know that is the opposite of expectations — Chicago is supposed to be the Midwestern cow town, full of rustics who escaped Iowa and Kentucky and still have pig slop ground into the seams of our boots as we stand gawping at the tall buildings. But New York is far more parochial. That Saul Steinberg drawing, compressing the nation between the Hudson and the Pacific into a bare brown rectangle? That's actually how they view the world.
Earlier this summer, Eric Adams, New York's mayor, announced a daring experiment. He said ... and I can barely get this out without laughing ... he said the city will now introduce rolling garbage cans with hinged lids, crowing that now, instead of piling their garbage bags in the street, a Gotham tradition as ingrained as hot dog carts, this new, Space Age technology will be embraced.
"We're going to catch up with everyone else and get these plastic bags off our streets," Adams promised.
Raising the question: How far ahead of New York is Chicago, rolling trash can-wise? How much catching up does New York have to do?
Forty years. Forty years ago, next week, in fact. On Sept 5, 1984, in the 8th Ward, the first wheeled garbage cart in Chicago was tipped into the first garbage truck equipped with a lift. Four other wards also took part in the pilot program.
At the time, Chicago's garbage record was nothing to brag about. For decades, garbage collection was a notorious mess of patronage, inefficiency and almost unfathomable squalor. Before World War II, apartment dwellers routinely threw garbage out the windows, as in medieval times. They had to be threatened with fines to do otherwise.
"We're going to catch up with everyone else and get these plastic bags off our streets," Adams promised.
Raising the question: How far ahead of New York is Chicago, rolling trash can-wise? How much catching up does New York have to do?
Forty years. Forty years ago, next week, in fact. On Sept 5, 1984, in the 8th Ward, the first wheeled garbage cart in Chicago was tipped into the first garbage truck equipped with a lift. Four other wards also took part in the pilot program.
At the time, Chicago's garbage record was nothing to brag about. For decades, garbage collection was a notorious mess of patronage, inefficiency and almost unfathomable squalor. Before World War II, apartment dwellers routinely threw garbage out the windows, as in medieval times. They had to be threatened with fines to do otherwise.
In the 1940s, half of Chicago's alleys were “lined with open piles of filth.” Only about 15% of garbage found its way into a metal can with a lid. A third of the trash was heaped in “old washtubs, battered baskets and boxes.” A quarter was left in open piles, with the last quarter dumped into large concrete containers. Garbage collectors went at the piles with shovels.
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Actually, it was Jane Byrne as mayor who pushed for the plastic garbage carts. She started it. I still remember her head of Streets & San saying in his Irish lilt, "It will be like a line of little black soldiers lined up in the alleys".
ReplyDeleteI don't remember anyone being scared of them, though. It was a pleasure to get rid of the heavy 55 gallon drums we used to use & it prevented a lot of back injuries to the workers who had to lift those heavy cans.
The sole problem with them is the manufacturer should be adding bromine to the plastic, to make them fire resistant. Vandals are always setting some on fire. That happened a couple of doors away from me & caused a wood garage to also burn down.
Byrne might have pushed, but Washington brought them in. She wasn't mayor in 1984, your memories notwithstanding.
DeleteWhen I was six years old, we moved into a house with a concrete garbage bin built at the edge of the alley in the yard. It had a metal door on the alley side for the garbage men to shovel out the garbage. I thought it was oh so modern!
ReplyDeleteThose were still around until the 1980s.
DeleteAll the new construction in Wilmette in the 1950s, had two can recessed into the ground. That must have broken a number of backs then.
I too have been to New York City several times . only seen the garbage lining the curbs in pictures . Didn't take note of the loose pack and bags. The alley feature in most of Chicago , my home town, is a huge plus . The plastic bins not so much. Far too often they are overflowing with loose trash and the bins are riddled with holes from squirrels and RATS. No sooner do new bins arrive than they are eaten through again.
ReplyDeletePeople rarely rinse the bins and the smell is unbearable. Steel cans with lids are the only way to keep the rats out. We have 4 medium sized cans we fill and on Friday dump them into the bins for collection. It's a hassle but the rat infestation is diminished. especially because of the growing feral cat colonies in our area.
There dosent seem to be a completely efficient way for municipalities to deal with trash. The bins in the alley much better than what's gone before. Especially preferable to bags at the curb on the street
Some people forget that Dumpster is a proper noun and must be capitalized at all times, not just on garbage day.
ReplyDeleteAbsolutely wild
ReplyDeleteFor New York, I see a problem with the bins blocking the sidewalks 7 days of the week, whereas the bags of garbage blocked them 1 day or at most a day and a 1/2. 50 years ago, Milwaukee had a very sophisticated garbage disposal system requiring that a homeowner divide up his detritus into plain garbage and various categories of recycling material. I have no idea whether they still have the system or not. But sometimes the little guys lead the way into the future.
ReplyDeletejohn
Los Angeles also had that once. They actually voted out a mayor when his opponent promised to end it.
DeleteIn some parts of Manhattan, they pick up the trash EVERY day. It piles up THAT fast So there's trash piled up every night, and the trucks wake you up seven days a week (Not really sure about Sundays, though).In neighborhoods like the one I stayed in, Midtown, there would be carts at the curb ALL the time, which would look like hell. There' aren't many places to keep them. No alleys, remember?
DeleteMaybe in the outer boroughs there are alleys, and pickups only a couple of times a week. So the bags are more manageable and less obtrusive, as the cans would also be. I haven't stayed out there in about twenty years, so my memories of Queens are getting more and more hazy. Getting old tends to do that.
Apartment dwellers in Chicago tossed garbage out the windows long after WWII, Mr. S. When I lived near Lakeview H.S. in the 80s, my Hispanic neighbors across the street did that routinely. They would toss their trash, either loose or bagged, out of their apartment windows, and into the alley, apparently aiming at the open bins in the alley below.
ReplyDeleteMost of the time, they completely missed their targets, and it doesn't take much imagination to visualize what that alley was like, after the bags exploded on the pavement. In New York, the results were known as "Puerto Rican Airmail." But the citizens would never say that sort of thing in cosmopolitan and enlightened Chicago. Hell, no. They'd use the n-word.
It floors me to learn that Chicago is just getting the black carts. People love to laugh at Cleveland, but we've had them for at least 15 or 20 years. The vast majority of this city has no alleys. Garages and driveways and off-street parking, yes...for the most part. But alleys have never existed, except in the oldest parts of the city. And we have quite a few of those, because--unlike other places-- Cleveland never burned. So the trash would be bagged and piled at the ends of the driveways...or at the curb. Great fun for the raccoons and skunks and possums, and for the cats and rats and elephants, and maybe even a few unicorns.
The cans seemed to be a godsend at first. We also got blue cans...ostensibly for recycling. Trouble was, most people here appear to be too lazy and too ignorant to recycle properly, and employ both cans for trash. Trash-contaminated recycling is worthless and useless. And it winds up in the landfill.
Worse still, our waste collection department couldn't orchestrate a two-car funeral. They throw the contents of both cans into the same leaky trucks, and cheerfully head for the landfill. But only after dumping garbage, broken glass, and foul-smelling liquids onto the streets,. Hell, they even miss whole streets on their ever-changing routes, leaving everything to fester in the heat for another week. Sometimes, their automated trucks will actually "eat" the plastic cans...and break them. Necessitating replacements, which are often slow to arrive.
The rolling plastic carts are a wonderful thing, Mr. S...but only if they're used properly. A lot of the time, the Cleveland trash guys, and the city's dazed and confused residents, don't do so. Hope Chicago educates its waste collection workforce and its citizens, and does better than this benighted Ohio metropolis.
The fire resistant additive to the plastic is a great idea. I hated those 55 gallon steel drums. You had to tilt it at a precarious angle and roll it on a swerving path to the curb if you didn't live with an alley. With your hands along the rough cut top rim. And hope everything didn't spill out when it tipped over. And now, all the trash cans are part of a matching set.
ReplyDeleteRandom animal fact I learned many years ago from a Streets & San worker attending to the rat situation in my alley --- holes in the bottom of the black carts are from rats; holes chewed at the tops of carts (usually at lid corners) are from squirrels. Apparently, rats are more reluctant to climb.
ReplyDeleteI applaud S&S for promptly replacing carts when you report any chewed ones via the 311 system, which I've had to do a couple times.
You guys in Chicago aren’t at the front of the pack. Out here in San Diego, each house has THREE rolling carts. Black for landfill material, blue for recyclables and green for grass and yard waste. Black and green are picked up each week by side-loading trucks requiring just the driver Recyclables are picked up every other week. Each house also has been given a countertop food-scrap container recommended for compost.
ReplyDelete