Since the Department of Sanitation began hiring women in 1986, there have been about 300 to hold the title of New York's Strongest—around 12 per year. 36-year-old Mary Ellen Connolly, who will be sworn in as a new Sanitation worker by Mayor Bloomberg on Wednesday, doesn't understand why. "I wish some of my girlfriends would do it. It's a great job." more ›

The Bloomberg administration has spent millions of dollars installing custom-designed GPS tracking units in fire and sanitation trucks over the past several years, but the system is rife with malfunctions, according to audits by city Comptroller John Liu. The GPS system has repeatedly shown fire trucks and sanitation trucks to be in the middle of New York Harbor or sinking in Long Island Sound, when in fact they were still safely on land. The city has spent as much as $56,000 for a single unit in a sanitation truck, and will continue to spend money on what Liu calls "wasted on technology that falls short of what’s promised, raising questions about the oversight of expensive outside consultants." more ›

Former Secretary of Defense and closet flesh-eating lizard Donald Rumsfeld once said, "You go to war with the army you have, not the army you might want." The statement can be applied to the Department of Sanitation's lack of tire chains during last year's blizzard that kept everyone's block nice and smelly. But it appears that Sanitation will attempt to wing it on the cheap again this year: instead of buying new ones, they're going to instruct workers how to make better use of the old ones. more ›

[Updates Below] Brookfield, the company which owns Zuccotti Park, is distributing flyers (see below) to protesters today informing them that the western portion of the park will be closed at 7 a.m. Friday for cleaning. The cleaning will take approximately four hours, and then the demonstrators will be allowed back in that area—"for lawful use consistent with our regulation." But the new regulations that Brookfield created would prohibit many of the things that have enabled the occupation to continue; among other things, the new rules prohibit sleeping bags, tarps, and even sleeping on the ground. more ›

Last month we rushed to judgment when a group of NYPD officers who parked in a bike lane were photographed inside a Papa John's establishment on what appeared to be non-urgent police business; i.e. eating shitty pizza. We judged them not only for blocking a bike lane, but also for dining on Papa John's in the pizza capital of the world. Well, there is egg on our faces, because it now appears law enforcement officials have been using Papa John's as a cover to conduct sting operations! Well, one Sanitation Department enforcement officer has been allegedly doing this. more ›

If Mayor Bloomberg has his way, street sweeper drivers could soon do double duty as shutterbugs, with cameras installed on their cacophonous machines to capture parking scofflaws. At Bloomberg's request, Long Island Republican Senator Dean Skelos "quietly" introduced a bill last month to permit the city to install cameras on street sweepers, the Times reports. It's a big step for Big Brother, and would follow in the footsteps of other cities like D.C., where the contraptions are called "Sweepercams." Now all we need is Albany to take action! more ›

Yesterday, the Department of Investigation released their long-awaited report on the alleged sanitation "slowdown" during last winter's Blizzageddon. And they ultimately found that there was no conspiracy to purposefully slowdown as revenge for department budget cuts. You can get the full report here. Thanks to it, one local politician may be facing contempt charges. more ›

When driving with drugs, don't overdo it with the air fresheners! That seems to be the moral of the story of ex-Sanitation worker John Mignano, who was caught allegedly transporting 8.8 pounds of cocaine, 50 pounds of marijuana, and nearly $21,000 in cash at a traffic stop in Kansas. Mignano would have gotten away with it too if it weren't for his penchent for air fresheners, the Kansas Highway Patrol Trooper who busted him recently recounted in Brooklyn federal court. more ›

Residents of Co-op City in the Bronx were thankful that the Department of Health ordered the Department of Sanitation to remove trash that had been piling up during the building workers strike. The sanitation department will not cross the picket lines unless ordered to by the health department, but residents were glad they did. Kevin Pierre, 32, told the Post. "I'm ecstatic. The raccoons were eating the garbage." The complex produces 40 tons of trash per day, but another resident said, "I've lived here all my life, and this is the worst I've ever seen it." more ›

A veteran city sanitation man is taking out the non-recycling trash! According to the NY Post, 45-year-old Randolph Garcia struck a Brooklyn man over the head with a shovel when he tried to sneak some recyclable cardboard boxes into a regular trash truck one recent morning. Before resorting to violence, he warned the man to take the recyclable items out of the truck—but the story drops off between that detail and the shovel pummeling. Currently the man is in stable condition at the Brookdale Hospital, and Garcia was arrested and is facing possible suspension. Might be time to study up on those new recycling rules. more ›

Now that restaurants will have to post letter grades from the DOH, many are scrambling to get their spaces up to snuff, raising the demand for food and sanitation consultants citywide. The niche profession has seen a nice boost in the past few years from restaurant owners looking to get a professional opinion before the health inspectors come around. Consultant Judi Hill told the New York Times, "A lot of people get into this business without realizing the magnitude of it." more ›

The city is saying that snow cleanup after this winter's big white storms may cost as much as $63 million. Sanitation Commissioner John Doherty says that though the city budgeted $38.3 million on plows, salt and other snow removal necessities, it's already dished out $42.7 million. And that's not even including the last two episodes, whose tab is expected to come to $20 million, reports the Post. more ›

A crash between a tractor-trailer truck and a sanitation truck left one dead this morning in Queens. The Daily News reports that the Mack truck turned onto Ditmars Blvd. at 35th St just before 8 a.m., hitting the sanitation truck and killing Frank Justich, who was riding on the back of the truck. Justich was pronounced dead at Elmhurst Hospital, but investigators do not suspect any criminality on behalf of the Mack truck driver. Justich had worked for the Sanitation Dept. for 11 years, and has been the tenth worker to die on-duty since 2003, according to the Uniformed Sanitationmen’s Association. more ›

Mayor Bloomberg has an unlikely opponent for his plans to build a sanitation garage in SoHo. Lou Reed has now taken his soapbox (previously stationed over at New York magazine) to the people's network: NY1. They report, "The rock star and his musician wife, Laurie Anderson, are among those suing the city over the plan that would build a garage, maintenance facility and salt shed on the corner of Washington and Spring Streets." Reed showed up at the network's studios last night and declared, "Why would anybody in their right mind want to do something so ugly, so irresponsible, so disgusting other than Bloomberg and real estate people, and slither this thing through without anyone having a chance to say about it because no one knew anything about it. You can't keep track of every last thing these thieves do. But having said that, to store that much salt over water, over the apex of two parks is beyond irresponsible and these people ought to be jailed." Fair enough. But one has to wonder if Reed would use his fame power if the facility were further away from his penthouse. more ›

You'll probably want to avoid eating dinner during tomorrow night's episode of Inside Edition, which promises some pretty revolting video of street vendors doing all sorts of unsavory things with their hands while on the job. According to the press release, the show's "Investigative Unit" caught a number of New York food vendors on tape exhibiting some "unsafe food handling practices." These include:
• One food vendor touching his bare feet with his fingers between his toes before going right back to serving customers.
• Another vendor near Times Square, who while wearing gloves picked his nose, handled money, scratched himself and touched raw chicken right before preparing food and serving customers.
• A vendor outside the Museum of Natural History who licked his gloved hand and counted money. Then he left his cart to use a bathroom in the museum and returned to serve customers without washing his hands.

The city has arrested six sanitation workers and suspended over fifty others after busting them for using department trucks to collect and sell scrap metal on the side. The Sun reports that after a worker was seen using his sanitation truck compactor to “break open an air-conditioner, giving him access to a metal part and in the process releasing ozone-depleting chlorofluorocarbon into the air,” investigators strategically placed CFC-free air-conditioners along collection routes in Queens, with nine employees taking the bait. "These DSNY employees took keeping discarded items on their routes to a whole new level," said the DOI commissioner. more ›