I’m standing outside against my stoop railing, talking to a friend, when a guy zips by on a bike, dumping a restaurant napkin full of trash in my tree pit. I yelled “hey, come on!” The guy yells back “you just moved to da neighborhood!” I yelled back at him in my biggest Bronx accent “Fooooock you!” The neighbors stared on in amusement.
So, I’m confused. Is this hazing? You toss trash in front of the new guy’s house? Or is it that this is how it’s always been done here, and since I’m new, my place is to get used to it? Only in Bushwick is dumping trash in front of someone else’s house an expression of civic pride.
Mr Kraayon July 10th, 2007 at 8:35 am
What a douchebag! Is the phrase,”you just moved to the neighborhood” supposed to mean “get used to it,we have no neighborhood pride, and neither should you”?
david July 10th, 2007 at 9:05 am
That type of thing seriously needs to stop. I walked around the corner from my apartment last month to witness some guy unloading bag after bag of trash and dumping it at a construction site. People like that are animals and one of the reasons I am moving out of the hood soon. Too many years of watching people destroy their own community.
electricgreek July 10th, 2007 at 9:54 am
Think it’s time for change ?
Amazing. They shit where they eat
Hrag July 10th, 2007 at 10:34 am
I’ve been in Bushwick 7 years and I’ve seen people throw trash everywhere but not in front of people’s homes…school yards yes, empty lots definitely, but homes, that’s just sick.
Sounds like you encountered an unfortunate asshole.
bushwickgirl July 10th, 2007 at 10:48 am
Sometimes I wonder if people who litter just don’t know any better. Is it something they were never taught not to do. I saw a guy the other day walk out of a store with his purchase and took out his soda and then just dropped the bag on the ground like it was no big deal. Arghhh it makes me so freakin mad.
Maybe we need the city to run an ad campaign in Bushwick to educate people about littering and that it is something that is unacceptable in nyc.
One of these days I’ll write the mayor. Along with all of my many other ideas of things that need to be fixed :)
Matt July 10th, 2007 at 10:51 am
lol! I have a suggestion. Cover your tree pit in a black plastic liner so it looks like a garbage can. Then no one will EVER throw anything in there again.
And I’m surprised that so far this year no one has shown us their ‘civic pride’ by taking flowers (or the entire box) from our front gate.
Jeremy July 10th, 2007 at 11:53 am
The “don’t know any better” excuse has gotten old. A city (aka, you and me) -financed campaign will just get moustaches and blacked-out teeth drawn on it. You think they care about public service announcements? Does ANYONE? People are already “educated” about littering. These people are not retarded, they know it’s trashy and poor to do it, but they like exuding a “ghetto” vibe. I made a face as a guy drove over the sidewalk to get past a truck and he yelled out the window “it’s the ghetto, son!” They love it, tossing trash and smashing windows in vacant buildings and never cleaning anything, ever literally is an expression of their pride in living here. No bus-stop-side poster is going to change that.
And trust me, the mayor doesn’t care about trash-filled tree pits in Bushwick. And frankly, I wouldn’t expect him to.
Ben July 10th, 2007 at 12:15 pm
Peer pressure is the only way to change this. The more people that look down on the litterbugs and say things to them the better. Sure they will initially respond with some BS but if they get comments time and time again they may just stop and think for a second.
Keeping the area in front of your house clean and good looking is contagious as well. If you take pride in your place then some of your neighbors will follow suit. The holdouts will be shamed into doing the same as their properties will be highlighted as being run down or dirty.
Once you get a couple of other people on board you can do things like enter your block in the greenest block contest. Then you tell everyone that you did it which may help to get the ball rolling.
Keep fighting back against these a-holes, they’ll eventually get the message.
electricgreek July 10th, 2007 at 12:45 pm
Even animals cover there shit afterwards.
Trust me. To them we are the weird ones for trying to keep things clean.
Applebottom Angel July 10th, 2007 at 1:26 pm
It’s a shame. People dump plates of chinese food right on the sidewalk, dog feces all over, wrappers, cans, cigarettes, booze bottles you name it.
Does anyone have information on those green garbage cans the city puts out for people to put trash in. I’d be willing to empty them myself.
Most people just don’t care, and leave litter all over the place.
Oh, and let’s not forget about people urinating, having sex, and throwing condoms all over the place.
How involved are the community boards with these issues. The police won’t help, and graffiti despite being able to call 911 on them hasn’t helped much.
z. July 10th, 2007 at 3:07 pm
In my nabe, we have the green cans & they say “Courtesy of Diana Reyna” (our city council member)… maybe yours would be willing to do the same?
Wick_or_Stuy July 10th, 2007 at 4:11 pm
That sort of none sence only happens in some blocks in Bushwick. someone just try to put you to the test….
BushB Girl July 10th, 2007 at 4:43 pm
I think Bushwick is notorious for garbage and people that don’t care. No one picks up after their dog around here. Even small bags of garbage are thrown curbside.
I agree – the worst is when someone throw plates or containers of chinese food on the sidewalk.
Jeremy July 10th, 2007 at 5:01 pm
There’s no authority but the authority of culture to turn to for things like this. Throwing trash everywhere is not a bit of “local color” I’m willing to accept. If these fuckers think I won’t throw their trash back in their faces, they are mistaken.
I already yelled at a fat old man who pulled a piece of paper out of his pocket, wrote something on it, ripped off the piece he wanted, and tossed the rest on my sidewalk. I yelled out my window “I don’t throw trash in front of your house, why do you throw it in front of mine?” He gave me a dirty look — but he picked it up.
z: Diana Reyna is our councilwoman, too. There are trash cans. Nobody cares to use them.
Wick/Stuy: what is the test? If I’m just gonna take it like the meek little white bitch they hope I am? Sounds like the kind of tests Christians talk about God giving us every time something bad happens.
dontbesomaven July 10th, 2007 at 5:16 pm
You think that just happends in the wick? It happends everywhere. All states all countries. Hell in medieval London they took shits out their windowws. You could see ass before you smelled it.
hans July 10th, 2007 at 10:16 pm
I know – just carry a gun so you can shoot people who litter in your tree pit. You’ll just be fitting in with the local culture.
sally July 10th, 2007 at 11:02 pm
Jeremy,
I know you are fed up. But please dont judge an entire neighborhood or group of people by the actions of a few.There are lots of people who take pride in their homes and themselves. In every community, whether Howard Beach, Bensonhurts , etc. you have rotten apples.
BklynGirl July 10th, 2007 at 11:14 pm
i disagree that trash is everywhere. there are other neighborhoods where people care about their sidewalks, and blocks. here guys are pissing on the streets like it’s nothing.
no cops around to change that, they walk past and don’t care.
i think the garbage cans would help, and also more trees on a block would make it seem nice.
anyone know what the consequences are if you put litter down those drains on the corner of the block. is that what they are made for, for the water to slide the garbage down there. i looked down in some and the garbage is piling up.
Mr Kraayon July 11th, 2007 at 12:08 am
Do more trees on the street really make a difference? I haven’t been down alot of Bushwick’s tree-lined streets, so I don’t know. I do know that Bushwick Ave’s brownstone area isn’t very trashy. That might leave me to believe that the nicer an area is built, the nicer the residents treat it.
jacob July 11th, 2007 at 9:53 am
I grew up in a brownstone on Bushwick Avenue and my family still owns there. If someone sees you drop your garbage someone is going to say something. It isn’t perfect but it is definetly alot cleaner then what you are experiencing. Start shaming people and they will eventually stop. It will take a while because there are generations of littering assholes, but it can stop if people start addressing it.
Mary July 11th, 2007 at 11:54 am
when we moved in to our place on Knickerbocker, the backyard was a dump that nobody used, they just threw their shit out the window into the yard.
we have lived here since November 06, I have done so much work in the yard- landscaping, planting and weeding multiple days a week. it took me yelling up at people a couple of times throwing shit out their windows, but it has stopped.
Its breaking this habit that people have had for a LONG time. they know its wrong when confronted and stop doing it, but it takes calling people out.
(Not that I would call people out on the street!)
the yard next door is still a nasty dump, so everyone still throws their trash there, but ours is nice now. the rats stay out and we have a few cats that love to hang out in the yard. Its beautiful and many of our neighbors have told us how much they love to look out on it.
Jimmy Legs July 11th, 2007 at 12:52 pm
Mary, i’ve experienced similar results with our yard. since we started making an effort to keep it cleaned up/landscaped, the neighboring yards have also cleaned up. two yards over is growing grass now, 3 yards over somebody keeps tilling up the soil like they’re getting ready for something major. the yard adjacent to ours got cleaned up initially but sadly there’s a mullberry tree that has totally dumped all over their property. i don’t blame em tho, you pretty much just have to wait for its shedding season to end.
on the other side of our yard, however, they haven’t cleaned up anything. but I realized the tenants in that building don’t have access to the yard, which i think sucks all around.
Matt July 11th, 2007 at 1:07 pm
Jimmy, I’ve always wondered about that. Our neighbors don’t have direct backyard access either. Whats up with that? Why even have a backyard? Our direct neighbors have what could be a nice, open yard. Instead it’s a patch of 4 foot weeds. Looks extremely silly next to our fenced in oasis of grass, flowers and pathways.
Further down there is the occasional backyard babypool party but I assume they are climbing out a window to get there since they are rarely in the back.
Oh, and a random aside.
We discovered that someone threw a beer bottle on our roof last week. Hah! From the street or the building beside us I don’t know. I’m assuming it was a random act of douchebaggery.
BklynGirl July 12th, 2007 at 12:28 am
be careful with the bottle on your room. that can lead to all kinds of partying up there, and people falling off roofs drunk and all.
it’s a shame people don’t pick up after their dog around here, and the police do nothing about it.
whtpower July 19th, 2007 at 10:15 am
Monkeys and apes arent eduicated enough to clean up their own shit, so i reccomend calling out all those littering jiggaboos the second they cross you. They seem to think the new white people moving in are some weak megar people, but i think those nigs have a lot to learn.
Bushwick used to be a white german neighborhood, its time to take back our streets and cut these spooks loose.
Bushwick is a perfect example of how “good” blacks can do for themselfs in society, and frankly it speaks volumes of truth.
Joe July 22nd, 2007 at 9:19 pm
Whtpower,
I think your rantings are more appropriate for a blog site that caters to the backwoods of the Deep South. I bet it is your wish to travel back in time to 1955 Alabama and personally arrest Rosa Parks. In addition to being white, a Bushwick native (lived here my whole life), I am also a law student. I respect the First Amendment as if it were Gospel,so I cannot be that upset you would engage in such a dumb tirade. On the other hand, it warms me to know that stupid people such as yourself still abound and are just asking to be taken advantage of.Since you appear to have a childlike command of the English language, I would suggest you go to the library (on your way to the beer distributor of course for the 24 pack you drink no doubt everyday in a wifebeater)and maybe, just maybe peruse some of the rhetoric Hitler made prior to the start of WWII.
To All others, alas white trash still lives here. Unfortunately, we don’t have any space to create trailer parks for them. I apologize for this racist on behalf of the good people of Bushwick who are decent, hardworking and willing to help a neighbor..