Welcome to Historic Dumpsterville

I can see it now. Tour busses filled with foreigners anxious to see the historic neighborhoods of New York City will soon be bussed into the Sunnyside Gardens area fresh from Landmarked status. A particularly knowledgeable tour guide will get over the PA system describing the history of this brilliant planned community with communal gardens.

"Now if you will look to your left, past the second dumpster, you can see the classic gardens." Tourists will crane their necks snapping photos. "And to your right, passed the dumpster with the large couch sticking out of it, is one of the original fire pull boxes."

Has anyone else noticed the large number of dumpsters strewn about the Gardens? Is this the city's way of dealing with the lack of trash cans in the neighborhood? Answering our prayers with the mother of all trash cans?

Since becoming one who works from home I have witnessed the dumpster become a character much like the neighbors I live next to. There was "the day the dumpster caught fire" when I looked out my window to billowing black smoke. There was "the day that dumpsters were put over the con edison manholes that needed repair." Where the con edison man yelled to the dumpster orderer that he was "an-NOY-YING."

I am happy that places are being rennovated and debris carted off, but here is the problem. The debris isn't carted off! Within a day these dumpsters are filled past their brims and then just left for weeks on end until they catch fire (and are then refilled) or become filled with such foul material that they literally disintigrate into the earth.

So for all the freegans out there looking for the mecca of dumpster diving, Sunnyside Gardens has a plethora of dumpsters, but in terms of finding anything salvageable, dive at your own risk!

The Last Days Pre-Landmark

If you live or have been through Sunnyside Gardens lately the panic is palpable. On our street alone three houses are in the process of putting in new front windows, doors, siding, and front steps. Stroll around the other blocks of the Gardens and you will find much of the same. Was there a discount on construction and landscaping? Did people feel a spring urge to clean house? Instead of public trash cans has the city decided to just put dumpsters on each block?

I think the real reason for the boom in construction is that people feel a "now or never" push to finally fix up steps and vestibules they thought they would one day get around to, realizing that if they wait much longer their little construction projects may need to meet board approvals or go through other red tape.

So if you want to see what the Sunnyside Gardens of yore looked like, come quick because in the days up until the landmark ruling the face of the Gardens seems to be rapidly a-changing!