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Yes we can! Pols expand Southern Brooklyn garbage service

Yes we can! Pols expand Southern Brooklyn garbage service
Photo by Georgine Benvenuto

They’re hoping to clean up Southern Brooklyn streets.

Councilmen Mark Treyger (D-Brooklyn) and Vincent Gentile (D–Bay Ridge) are re-upping street-cleaning programs supplemental to the Sanitation Department’s that they rolled out last year. Treyger is allocating taxpayer cash to pay contract workers to sweep 86th Street in Bensonhurst, Avenue U in Gravesend, and Mermaid Avenue in Coney Island — something locals are welcoming with open arms, one Bensonhurster said.

“I am really happy that 86th Street will finally be clean and safe for the entire community. It has been a long time that we have waited for this, and we are all very excited about this,” said Josephine Giordano, owner of Lenny’s Pizzeria, at a ceremony on 86th Street and 20th Avenue in Bensonhurst on Monday.

And Gentile is taking care of the rest of Bensonhurst, as well as Dyker Heights and Bay Ridge — his workers will clean Third, 13th and 18th avenues.

The councilmen are funding the efforts through City Council’s Cleanup NYC Initiative, which gave council members taxpayer money dedicated expanded street-cleaning service in their respective districts this year.

Treyger allocated $130,000 and Gentile nearly $200,000 — $90,000 of which came from his discretionary fund rather than the cleanup fund.

Gentile’s additional cash will pay for new trash pickup on 13th Avenue in Dyker Heights on Mondays and expanded the Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday pickups he funded last year to stretch from 65th to 86th streets. Previously, the pickup only

Both the Doe Fund and the Wildcat Service Corporation, which employ former convicts and the formerly homeless, will handle cleaning duties for Treyger, a spokesman said. Gentile is just using Wildcat, according to information from his office.

Reach reporter Dennis Lynch at (718) 260–2508 or e-mail him at dlynch@cnglocal.com.
Can-do attitude: Councilman Mark Treyger announces expanded street-wsweeping and garbage-collection service along 86th Street, Avenue U, and Mermaid Avenue on Oct. 26.
Photo by Georgine Benvenuto