One of New York City’s richest neighborhoods is about to get trashy.
A $240 Million Dollar garbage transfer center has just been approved for the Upper East Side’s Yorkville neighborhood, part of the City Council’s 2006 solid waste management plan that aims to equally distribute unsightly and fragrant garbage facilites throughout the city. One of the main goals of the program seeks to keep from overburdening low income neighborhoods and allowing wealthier parts of town to share the load.
The benefits would be great, too. Deputy Mayor of Operations Cas Halloway says the new facility, which could be completed in 2015, would “help double the city’s recycling rate, move trash via barge instead of trucks to cut down on emissions and traffic, and ensure that every borough bears some responsibility for handling its own waste.” But Yorkville residents won’t have it, and look to take the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers–issuers of the facility’s permit–to court.
It makes sense…to a degree. These people pay a lot to live in a pleasant smelling part of Manhattan. But not having lots and lots of money shouldn’t be the one thing that forces someone to submit to the smell of decaying trash every day.
(Photo: The U.S. National Archives)
You're right – nobody wants a garbage facility in their neighborhood, but I also think it's fair to say that the proposed location for this facility is less than ideal. Here's an overhead map of the plans:
https://sphotos-a.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash4/32566…
The facility would result in garbage trucks lining-up and encircling the neighborhood's primary outdoor athletic facility used by New Yorkers from both wealthy and less wealthy neighborhoods. The road to the facility literally bisects the place … with any additional trucks expected to line up along York Ave. while they wait to enter the facility. So encircling an athletic facility frequented by thousands of adults and children will be garbage trucks … which, in my experience, aren't the best drivers in the city.
So while it's marketed as the wealthy neighborhoods taking their fair share of garbage, and as much as I like my neighborhood, it's largely a mischaracterization to say it's exclusively hope to the rich.