Vendors along Myrtle Avenue’s shopping strip in Ridgewood will be seeing more of the NYC Sanitation Department (DSNY), as the Business Improvement District (BID) received funding for an additional day of trash collection service.
Myrtle Avenue will not be the only shopping strip and BID to benefit from this program and funding. The shopping strips along Fresh Pond Road in Ridgewood, Metropolitan Avenue in Middle Village and Grand Avenue in Maspeth will each receive an extra day of trash pickup service.
This extra day of trash pickup on Myrtle Avenue will ensure that garbage is collected across the BID seven days a week thanks to funding allocated by Councilwoman Elizabeth Crowley and Councilman Antonio Reynoso — whose districts share portions of the commercial strip.
They were joined by Assemblywoman Catherine Nolan; members of DSNY; Ted Renz, the executive director of the Myrtle Avenue BID; members of the 104th Precinct; Kathryn Garcia, DSNY commissioner; and members of Community Board 5, outside of Ridgewood Savings Bank at the intersection of Myrtle and Forest avenues on Friday, Dec. 2, to announce the extra day of pickup service.
“Our commercial corridors are the lifelines that keep our communities thriving and it is important that we make their success a priority today and every day,” Crowley said. “Because when our local businesses succeed, we all succeed.”
For years, both Crowley’s office and Reynoso’s office received calls from residents about trash piling up on Myrtle Avenue. Each Council member was allotted over $200,000 to spend on clean initiative programs in their districts, and a portion of those funds went toward cleaning up Myrtle Avenue.
“Unfortunately in the last couple of years we have seen an increase in the need for more service when it comes to basket pickup and the cleanliness of our streets,” said Reynoso, who chairs the City Council’s Sanitation Committee. “The New York City Clean Up Initiative really gave us an opportunity to finally be able to address that issue locally the way Council member Crowley and I have.”
“This expansion will allow many of our communities to get the necessary services it needs to ensure that our commercial areas remain litter free,” Nolan added.
