Jackson Heights Life

Jackson Heights Neighborhood Transportation Study

Saturday April 17, 2010
8:30am to 2:30pm

at Public School 69
77-02 37th Avenue (Between 77th & 78th Streets)
Jackson Heights, NY

Council Member Daniel Dromm and the Department of Transportation are working with the community to improve safety and transportation conditions in the area. Please visit our open house to discuss possible solutions for:

    * Pedestrian Safety
    * Traffic Congestion
    * Scarce Parking
    * Slow Bus Service
    * Noise & Air Pollution
    * and more!

We want YOU to play an active role in this project! The open house will include a series of exercises to explain what we've learned and solicit your input.
 
Join us anytime between 8:30am and 2:30pm. The process takes about 30 minutes. All members of the public are encouraged to attend.

Being dirty has nothing to do with legal status , socioeconomic status , or with being an immigrant or not . In high traffic areas , especially with high foot traffic dirtiness is always an issue

APG7714,

Me being actually an immigrant and also had experience visiting many different countries, I think your opinion is very naive or maybe you never had a chance to see different culture.

Being dirty has often something to do with socioeconomic status and culture.  Different countries has different standard of what is considered dirty.
it is true that the high foot traffic play a big factor.  But it is also true that if you go to busy streets of Tokyo or Singapore where the foot traffic is far more heavier than a quiet street in Mumbai, India, yet the busy streets in Tokyo or Singapore have far less litters on the street than in Mumbay.  This is not because the city of Tokyo send cleaning unit more often, but because individuals respect more public space.

I grew up in a country where littering is considered a very bad behavior and my mom would scold me if I litter.  On the other hand, I have seen many times in 73rd street and 74th street where a little kid litter in front of his/her mom and the mom didn't say anything.  I see there is a culture differene here, too.

The only way to stop it is to clean it up with the help of people like the DOE fund

It is kind of a sad to hear that you are saying you have to rely on external forces to have a clean environment. 
I believe that it should be individuals who take more responsibility and respect the public space.  If each individual stop littering, there is not garbage on the street to start with.  People should respect the fact that the street is shared by people from different culture.  It may be considered ok to litter in public in one cultural group.  But the same street is also shared by a group of people where littering is bad thing.  I think that the lack of respect toward different culture and public is the main cause of dirty environment.

So bash me if you want, call me a racist if you want, but I guarantee you that my opinions are not mean-spirited and certainly not coming out of vacumn.  

I feel you 100%.   What I am going to express here is not related to the homeless but please allow me say this here because it is somehow related in my opinion.   I have been agressively complaining about South Asians'  (Indian / Bangladesh, etc..) custom of littering in public.  Some people in this board bash me for me speaking out saying "that is racist"
But I am not!!  (Just FYI, I am an Asian Immigrant, also!!)  Sometimes, I maybe misunderstood because
my English is not so good.  But like I live here too said, my opinions are not from mean-spririted.

I feel like when some people trying to solve the issue of littering in JH, they are going the wrong direction by not realizing the true cause of the problem.  Being an Asian, I am more familiar with what is going on in countries like India and Bangladesh and it is very much known fact that they have bad custom of littering in public that most Indians admit.  (Just read some comments from Indians in this page for example :http://blogcritics.org/culture/article/a-dutch-diplomat-calls-delhi-filthy/)

So, what I am trying to say is that yes, political correctness is important at certain extent, some people are too sensitve about it and it keeps people from making a progress about the issue.




Moderator note: this post was split off from the "Homeless" thread.  Koku: please review the site rules.

This is what I have been telling in this board and I am glad finally residents around 73rd st. speak up.
73rd street DO need serious help.  We have a serious noise, and pollution problem.  Almost every night, there are huge group of South Asian hanging around and leave so much litter every night.  And it creates traffic congestions.  73rd street looks very chaos and give the impression that city or police don't care about it, which will attract crimes..  yes, report by NY1 would be a great help.

the link to the photo didn't work in the previous post.  I hope it works this time.
If you can post yours, we appreciate it.

I want to take pictures of the trash on the street. See where it is coming from and who is responsible

Let's be honest, and don't be so naive.   Just go to 73rd Street between 37th Road and 37th Ave at night.  There are full of Southern Asians haging out there till past midnight who are contributing the trash on the street everyday.  Also, the street in front of eagle theatre is also filthy spot.  Roosevelt avenue is not so bad compared to 73rd and 74th street.  If you really want to experience how filthy this neighborhood is, just walk to 73rd,  74th street and 37th road between 73rd and 74th early morning in weekend or Monday.  That's the worst.  It is sad that the subway exist of 73rd street where there are many vendors are is a gate to Jackson Heights and basically people visiting JH from outside are welcomed by lots of garbage on the street and a few homeless people sleeping IN THE MIDDLLE OF the street, which pretty much give you an impression that this area is out of control.  No wonder a newspaper called Jackson Heights as one of the filthiest neighborhood in NY.  I feel shame but that is the reality. 

dssjh, you can see the video of the clinic that I mentioned.  It appears in the beggining.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mwu8Z14892M

the majority of the litter and garbage i see strewn on the street seems to be candy wrappers, potato chip bags, mcdonald's waste, cigarette butts....

That is not true.  Look at 73rd street.  So many food container boxes from the vendors are thrown on the street everyday.  It is so disgusting and depressing to see them everyday.  On 73rd street, we have 4 or 5 vendors on ONE BLOCK.  Yes, it is true that vendors are not the one who throw garbage.  But that is like you are saying that gun control will not the reduce the death rate by the gun because it is not the gun who kill the people but it is the people.  If we don't have vendors, the street will be cleaner for sure (although the people who hang out around the area would continue to litter other things.) 

For people who don't live around 73rd and 74th street, garbage may not be a big problem because that is not part of your life and you are not dealing with it everyday.  But for people who live around there, it is a serious problem.  It is the same logic that being able to visit and being able to live is different thing.  Imagine that you are coming back to your neighborhood with being tired from your work and once you get out of the subway station, you are welcomed by so much of the garbage on the street.  The garbage also attracts rats and crime because full of garbage on the street give impression that the area is not controlled, which will attracts homeless people and crimes. 

Controlling the vendors will definately benefit our community.  when you say community, I mean the residents who ACTUALLY live around there.