The streets of New York City were definitely never paved in gold, however, they were paved.
In those days there was some element of continuity in any ten feet of city blocks. Today, you cannot walk on a sidewalk in Manhattan without a total change in the pavement. Just walking down Lexington Ave you will see that there is a different pavement about every ten feet.
In other times, shopkeepers were responsible for maintaining the pavement outside of their shops and the pavements were uniform on any given block.
This deterioration is causing unsafe and difficult passage for foot traffic with no one being held responsible. Furthermore, the proliferation of garbage on the streets has certainly not added to curb appeal.
Every store, building, restaurant and diner are allowed to dump their garbage in piles on the sidewalks of New York City streets. These piles litter both the streets and also attract mice and rats.
On 57th street alone, between Park Ave and Lexington Ave, the collection of garbage on the street produced by The Palace Diner, Dunkin Donuts, Blank Street Coffee to name a few, generates pounds of garbage and over 18 rats were counted at one time at the same location.
The other day there was a bin on the street, it was a black, nicely designed discreet bin for garbage. Why can’t the city of New York, one of the wealthiest cities in the world, work out a deal with the trade unions which would encourage and permit such garbage bins instead of the present collection of ugly plies of rat infested garbage? Replacing the garbage bags with bins would enormously improve the experience of walking through Manhattan, north, south, east and west.
It is absolutely imperative that all the citizens of New York City support Mayor Adam’s new initiative regarding trash in garbage bins to replace the rat infested garbage piles that currently litter our streets.