Good morning. It’s Monday. Today we’ll look at trash — yes, trash — that doesn’t make it into the garbage can.
In the financial district, we found a box for allergy medicine, a glove and a ticket stub for the musical “Wicked.” In Washington Heights, we discovered crumpled-up seltzer cans and packets of Chinese hot sauce. In Little Italy, it was a yellow comb and a broken clothes hanger. In a big city like New York, it’s no surprise that there is a lot of litter. It’s easy to see it all as just another meaningless symptom of urban disarray. Litter can attract cockroaches and rats; it can cause odors; it can signal to us which sidewalks and street corners to avoid. But there’s more to litter. My colleagues Emilie Gia Mẫn Rolland and John Leland picked through discards across Manhattan to find out more. When the place shapes the litterSome neighborhood litter tells you about the people who spend time there. On the Upper West Side, where former Gov. Andrew Cuomo did relatively well in his unsuccessful mayoral campaign, they found one of his political fliers. Near hospitals in Kips Bay, they found a cut tennis ball, probably damaged by the base of a walker. They discovered Chinese-language cigarette packs in Little Italy, which is next to Chinatown. When litter shapes usOne psychological experiment illustrated how litter affects behavior. In the experiment, researchers put handbills on car windshields and observed whether drivers threw them on the ground or held onto them. People tended to throw them on the ground if it was already littered. But researchers found a twist. If subjects were in a clean garage, and they saw someone throw handbills down, they became less likely to do so themselves. The lesson: Some environments may make us more likely to litter, but witnessing someone mess up a clean place can have the opposite effect. How we deal with litterIn New York City, the Sanitation Department probably has the most intimate understanding of litter, which ends up on the ground despite the agency’s 23,000 trash cans. Sanitation workers haul 24 million pounds of garbage from city neighborhoods daily. And every day, New Yorkers find a way to recreate our trash-dotted landscape. “Littering is something that psychologists and economists refer to as a public goods dilemma,” said Joshua Rottman, a psychology professor at Franklin and Marshall College in Pennsylvania. “Even though it’s to everybody’s advantage to retain the cleanliness of a public area, it is generally easier for any single individual to litter.” WEATHER Expect a rainy and breezy day with temperatures around 51. Partly cloudy conditions are expected tonight, with temperatures dropping near 28. ALTERNATE-SIDE PARKING Suspended for snow removal. The latest Metro news
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Dear Diary: It was February 2013. With a foot of snow expected, I left work early and drove from New Jersey warily as my wipers squeaked and snow and ice stuck to my windows. I drove east on the Cross Bronx Expressway, which was tied up worse than usual. Trucks groaned on either side of my rattling Toyota. My fingers were cold. My toes were colder. Got to get home before it really comes down, I thought to myself. By the time I got home to my little red bungalow a stone’s throw from the Throgs Neck Bridge, the snow was already up to my ankles. Inside, I took off my gloves, hat, scarf, coat, sweater, pants and snow boots. The bed, still unmade, was inviting me. But first, I checked my messages. There was one from Teresa, the 92-year-old widow on the corner. “Call me,” she said, sounding desperate. I looked toward the warm bed, but … Teresa. There was a storm outside, and she was alone. On went the pants, the sweater, the coat, the scarf, the boots and the gloves, and then I went out the door. The snow was six inches deep on the sidewalks, so I tottered on tire tracks in the middle of the street. The wind stung my face. When I got to the end of the block, I pounded on her door. “Teresa!” I called. No answer. “Teresa!” I called again. I heard the TV blaring. Was she sprawled on the floor? I went next door and called for Kathy. “Teresa can’t answer the door,” I said. “Probably fell.” Kathy had a key. In the corner of her neat living room, Teresa, in pink sweatpants and sweaters, was sitting curled in her armchair, head bent down and The Daily News in her lap. I snapped off the TV. Startled, she looked up. “Kathy! Neal!” she said. “What’s a five-letter word for cabbage?” — Neal Haiduck Illustrated by Agnes Lee. Tell us your New York story here and read more Metropolitan Diary here. Glad we could get together here. M.Z. P.S. Here’s today’s Mini Crossword and Spelling Bee. You can find all our puzzles here. Davaughnia Wilson and Ed Shanahan contributed to New York Today. You can reach the team at nytoday@nytimes.com. Sign up here to get this newsletter in your inbox.
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