City Removes Garbage Pile From UWS Street After Complaints

UPPER WEST SIDE, NY — A collection pile of trash and miscellaneous objects on an Upper West Side street was removed Monday morning after months of accumulation and complaints.

The West Side Rag was the first to report on the pile's removal.

Around 11 a.m., Department of Sanitation workers, social workers and New York Police Department officers were at 76th and 77th streets and Columbus cleaning up the garbage pile and talking to the man who had spent months collecting the items.

The man, who the New York Post reported is not experiencing homelessness, eventually left the scene with social workers.

For the past several months, the man used the space as a personal type of storage locker, while also trying to sell the objects to people walking by.

The various city agencies arrived on the Upper West Side street Monday morning shortly after a story in the Post detailed the growing trash and complaints coming from the community, including from families attending the nearby Anderson School.

"This is property, it's unattended at night," an NYPD lieutenant told the man, according to the NY Post. "You leave it unattended. It's movable property. It's against the law to leave it on a public sidewalk."

The area is now completely clean.