The Sunset Park BID was created to supplement city services, not to replace them. In order to create a cleaner 5th Avenue, the BID hires extra crew members to empty corner pails, remove stickers from the lampposts and do light sweeping. We are constantly monitoring the program in order to make sure that we are really making a difference. The BID now has hired JAG Cleaning & Maintenance for 4 days a week to perform the tasks we feel are most important. We are in constant communications with the local sanitation garage, BK7, which is keenly aware of the needs of a commercial strip.
Mayor Bloomberg, as part of his long-range PlanNYC has instituted numerous ways to “save our planet”. Last October, 2008, one part of that plan began in Sunset Park when we joined 17 other commercial strips as part of a pilot commercial recycling program. Each area was given recycling pails, blue for paper and green for plastic, metal and glass. The Sunset Park BID has its 2 pails located at 44th Street and 5th Avenue, where our own sanitation crew services them. Happily, our community is very cooperative, using the pails mainly for recycling, thereby making the pilot program a success.
In 1995 when the Sunset Park BID first began operation, nearly every inch of the area, including buildings, storefront gates, doorways, lampposts, trucks and even the sidewalk, was covered with graffiti. No surface was safe from the vandals.
In 1999, the Sunset Park BID hired CitySolve to remove graffiti from the entire avenue, about 2,000 tags. Since then, the number of tags has decreased from about 600 the first year to about 300 now, but by keeping continually vigilant, we have been able to keep 5th Avenue virtually graffiti-free. Crews remove tags almost as they appear and anything unusual is reported to the NYPD.
This “victimless” crime has cost the SPBID close to $100,000 over the course of the last 10 years. We continue to work with the 72nd Precinct to keep pictures of tags and possibly apprehend the vandals. If anyone sees a someone vandalizing a location, they are encouraged to report the crime.