After snowstorm, trash piles up on NYC streets

NEW YORK (FOX5NY.COM) - Seemingly endless piles of trash line the south side of East 76th Street in Manhattan. Right across town on West 75th Street, mountains of garbage loom high above the sidewalks.

"It makes me feel awful because New York City is a wonderful city and this is just dirty," said Stamatis Pelardis, the general manager of 'Cesca Italian restaurant. "It's disgusting."

He claims the city hasn't cleared the curbs in two weeks. The trash isn't even 'Cesca's. The restaurant pays a private company to collect its garbage. This eyesore all comes from neighboring residential buildings.

"If you can see the situation over here you think the restaurant that you are walking into is not clean, you pass automatically to dismiss it," Pelardis said. "It's not fair for our business. It's hurting our business a lot."

More than 2,000 collection trucks were out on the streets Tuesday, which is twice the normal number, according to the Sanitation Department. The agency also claims it still has crews cleaning up the snow.

Pelardis said business has been down 20 percent in the past two weeks. At dinner time, we found only one family dining inside.

"We saw the trash and we were horrified that we were about to go in to dinner and there was this mountain of trash in front," patron Peter Lisi said. "You'd think the city would be able to clean up the trash."

The Sanitation Department also told Fox 5 that it only resumed limited collections this past Saturday. That resulted in a backlog of more than 40,000 tons of material on curbs throughout the city. The agency also said it is working hard and plans to have all this trash cleared up by the end of the week.