Quantcast

The DNAinfo archives brought to you by WNYC.
Read the press release here.

Army of Workers Clean Up Midtown Snow for New Year's Eve Celebration

By Della Hasselle | December 30, 2010 9:20am

By Della Hasselle

DNAinfo Reporter/Producer

TIMES SQUARE — With New Year's Eve only a day away, city workers were furiously plowing massive piles of snow in an attempts to clean the streets and sidewalk from 55th Street to Times Square in Midtown Thursday morning.

"It's Midtown, they gotta let the tourists through," upstate New York resident and computer repairman Steve Primo, 43, said on his way to work. "It's all about the money. Tourists don't want to go to Brooklyn, that's why they don't clean up Brooklyn first."

Nearly a million people from around the globe are expected to gather in Times Square for the ball drop tomorrow, days after close to two feet of snow fell in Manhattan.

The city is coming under heavy criticism for its mishandling of post-blizzard snow cleanup, but the workers clearing the streets in midtown Thursday appeared to have unlimited resources at their disposal, assigning multiple plows and frontloaders to each block of Seventh Avenue between 55th Street and Times Square. The avenue was closed to traffic for hours during rush hour by police vehicles and unmarked vans, and there were dump trucks parked on every block to cart away the snow. 

The snow was piled into mounds and then taken away along Seventh Ave. heading south towards Times Square.
The snow was piled into mounds and then taken away along Seventh Ave. heading south towards Times Square.
View Full Caption
DNAinfo/Della Hasselle

Workers said they were determined to have the bustling area ready in time.

"We'll get it ready. We always get it ready every year," one worker told WCBS-TV Tuesday. "Now let me get back to work."

Representatives of the New York City Department of Sanitation were not immediately available for comment.

Expressing mixed reactions, commuters paused to gawk at the 15-foot mounds of dirt-ridden snow as half a dozen frontloaders worked to clear the snow starting before sunup.

"It seems like it's a special effort for New Year's Eve, I guess, but I feel bad for the people out there in the boroughs," Kansas resident Todd Carlson, 46, said while watching from outside the Midtown Sheraton, where he was staying.

"It's gotta be tough, stranded out there like that. It's gotta be frustrating. But It's a tough decision," Carlson added. "It seems like they should've cleaned up the boroughs but Times Square has got to be done too."

Business owners and Midtown workers agreed that the cleanup was necessary.

"You have to, it has to be done for the tourism," ironworker Kevin McKeon, 38, agreed. "It's the best spot to be for New Year's Eve."

Not everyone felt as understanding about Midtown's special treatment, however.

"Dear @mikebloiomberg @nycmayorsoffice snow still unplowed in Queens but please plow Times Square again - you suck #fraud," JimMendrinos Tweeted Thursday.

Some residents didn't understand why the cleanup efforts couldn't have started earlier.

"We should have cleaned the whole city first, then focused on Times Square," Primo added.