TOMPKINSVILLE
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. — Brook Street homeowner James Harris has been known to attend civic meetings with three albums of photographs cataloguing a 52-year grievance.
What had once felt for him like a one-man mission is now the goal of hundreds of North Shore residents: To remove the city’s Department of Sanitation garage from a residential section of Tompkinsville.
Organizers of a rally to be held Sept. 19 at 2 p.m. hope to draw some 500 North Shore residents, along with packs of reporters and politicians, to the Brook Street side of the garage.
“The Sanitation garage is a neighborhood blight, a noxious neighbor, and a hindrance to economic revitalization,” said John Kilcullen, a member of the New Brighton Coalition of Concerned Citizens, the grassroots civic group that is organizing the event.
Because the garage is old and undersized, it causes congestion in the surrounding area. Trucks triple parked on Brook Street turn a two-way street into a de facto one-way; the S46 bus had to be rerouted to avoid the narrow passageway. In the winter, the streets are even more cramped when plows and salters join the fleet. Garbage and recycling trucks parked outdoors bring debris to the street and pungent smells that grow ranker as the temperature climbs.
For Harris, these nuisances are the stuff of daily life.
His family moved to Brook Street in 1947, when he was 5 years old. The depot that had been a barn for trolley cars until the late 1920s became a Sanitation garage in 1958.
“They’ve damaged my mother’s house, they’ve destroyed sidewalks, and they park those trucks four deep,” said Harris by phone last week. “It’s a health problem and an environmental problem. It stinks in the summer, and in the winter, it’s even worse with the trucks. People get soot on their houses. They park in front of stores and in front of my garage. They should really be in a non-residential area.”
ALL TALK, NO ACTION
On that last point it appears that everyone, from neighbors to politicians to the Sanitation employees, agrees.
But political commitment has been weak.
The city has been talking relocation for more than 20 years, but monies have been written into the budget in disappearing ink. City dollars allocated for relocation were cut in 2008.
“[The garage] has been an obscenity in the neighborhood for years and years, and the budget has been such that they haven’t been able to move it,” said Ed Josey of Clifton, president of the Staten Island chapter of the NAACP. “I wonder if institutionalized racism was part of the reason. Had this garage been in another neighborhood, I wonder if it would it have been moved a long time ago.”
At a Coalition meeting earlier this year, a Sanitation representative told the group:
“I’m not going to lie to you or sugar-coat things. The garage is Not. Going. Anywhere. There is no money for a garage to be built anywhere else. We’re working on details to get the parked trucks off the streets, but moving that garage is not happening.”
In late July, borough chief Ralph Reed announced that 20 trucks and 40 workers would be relocated this fall to Sanitation’s Fresh Kills site, a compromise that Councilwoman Debi Rose (D-Democrat) hailed as a “partial solution to a terrible situation.”
“I’m thankful to the Commissioner for the interim solution which reduces the number of trucks, equipment and personnel located at the Brook and Jersey Street site,” said Ms. Rose. “I look forward to working with the Commissioner on finding a permanent location which will not negatively impact another residential community.”
Ms. Rose said a solution has been too long in coming.
“I strongly support the community’s efforts to have the garage moved permanently,” said Ms. Rose. “It has long been an eyesore and an environmental hazard, one which has had a debilitating effect on members of the community who suffer from a wide range of health issues. Residents have had to put up with foul odors, cracked and blocked sidewalks among numerous traffic and parking hazards.”
“The permanent move of this garage is long overdue,” she continued, “and I have committed myself to not only ensuring that this becomes reality but also working towards the revitalization of this neighborhood.”
Many of the Sanitation workers volunteered to be relocated, according to an employee whose name is withheld here because he was not authorized to speak with the press. The garage is overcrowded and showing its age, he said, and parking for employees can be scarce.
“We’re on the community’s side on this,” he said.
Members of the Coalition have repeatedly said they appreciate the services provided by the Sanitation workers. It’s the garage’s location, not its employees, that are at issue.
STEPPED-UP PRESSURE
Members of the Coalition’s Sanitation subcommittee met last week to discuss their strategy. Kevin Washington, Caroline Zappasodi, Shirley Allen, Kilcullen, and Elder Edwin McBride worked on designing lawn signs, flyers and banners that have become a visible presence in the community.
“[We hope] that the rally will arrest the attention of the mayor and will have him understand the urgency of moving on this issue,” said the Rev. Dr. Victor Brown, who heads up the Coalition that meets the first Tuesday of each month in the Mount Sinai United Christian Church Community Enrichment Center on Jersey Street. “I believe the numbers will dramatize the seriousness of the environmental concerns of the Sanitation Department’s continued presence there.”
For information about the rally, call Mount Sinai United Christian Church: 718-447-8389.
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