(2/2) “There’s about 40,000 pieces in my collection now. You...

(2/2) “There’s about 40,000 pieces in my collection now. You wouldn’t believe the stuff that I’ve found in the garbage. I’ve got paintings. I’ve got books. Gold rings, gold watches, gold bracelets. I’ve got stained glass windows that are 125 years old. I’ve even got an 8 mm film projector with a silent movie in the reel. The movie still plays and everything. This stuff is real treasure. But after awhile my collection got so big that I started to worry I’d get in trouble. I did my best to keep everything organized: all the paintings in one place, all the toys in one place. But 40,000 goodies is a lot of goodies! So when the commissioner came to see my collection a few years ago, I was nervous. But she was so impressed. She let out a big ‘wow!’ And the sanitation department decided to let me use this space. It’s where we used to keep our trucks, but the floor started cracking. So now it’s where I keep my treasure. A lot of people are telling me that it’s like a museum. And that I’m like a curator. To be honest I’d never even heard the word ‘curator.’ But it really got me thinking: why shouldn’t it be a museum? The Fire Department has a museum. The Police Department has a museum. Why can’t the Sanitation Department have a museum? Some place where people can see all the great stuff that they’re throwing away. Maybe then they’ll stop and think about it. And maybe they’ll stop and think about the people who pick it up. People don’t like to think about garbage collectors. Cause they don’t like to think about the garbage. Sometimes they want to pretend it doesn’t exist. And that’s their choice. But it’s a choice they have because we spend 24 hours a day cleaning it up. But we don’t mind. This job feeds our families. It’s a good job with good benefits. But it always feels nice to have a little recognition. There’s no parade for the sanitation department. We’re the ones who clean up after the parade, so that the next day you can’t even tell there was a parade. And that’s also something to celebrate. So I’d love for us to have our own museum. A museum of trash. But not real trash. It would be a museum filled with treasure, that some people thought was trash.” #comebacknyc