On Mon, 15 Feb 2016 12:50:04 -0600, philo wrote:

.......

Yes...I know NY did not even have garbage collection until 1905 or
thereabouts.

google nyc garbage collection history

I was surprised that there are so many, more than 10, urls about this
very thing. All of them look interesting. Many have pictures.
http://www.collectorsweekly.com/arti...deep-in-trash/
In 2002, Nagle was first granted access to the department’s archives,
and in 2003, she initiated the process of actually becoming a
sanitation worker. After working closely with the department for
years—riding routes, visiting garages, attending social events, and
interviewing employees—Nagle was named the department’s only
Anthropologist in Residence in 2006. “It’s the perfect title,” says
Nagle, “the perfect framing of my relationship with them. It lets me
propose weird things, and they just shake their heads and say, ‘It
must be because she’s an anthropologist.'”....
One of Nagle’s most disturbing revelations is that a career in
sanitation is more dangerous than working for the fire or police
department, despite a clear absence of public appreciation for our
garbage men and women.....
Nagle: It was created as the Department of Street Cleaning in
1881, and renamed the Department of Sanitation in 1929. But it was
actually made effective for the first time in 1895, in that the people
who worked for the department actually collected garbage and swept the
streets.

http://discardstudies.com/2013/10/13...n-photographs/
http://www.astc.org/exhibitions/rotten/timeline.htm not nyc
especially
http://cooperator.com/article/one-ma...is-still-trash
http://archive.onearth.org/article/d...trashy-history
http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/...new-york-city/
based on Nagle
http://www1.nyc.gov/assets/dsny/abou.../history.shtml
http://greenpointers.com/2014/03/27/...-with-garbage/
http://io9.gizmodo.com/heres-what-ne...tion-565446786
https://sanitationupdates.wordpress....new-york-city/
https://macaulay.cuny.edu/eportfolio...new-york-city/
1895 – George Waring became the Commissioner of the Department of
Street Cleaning (now Dept. of Sanitation) and put into action a waste
management plan that made ocean dumping illegal and mandated recycling
efforts. Prior to Waring, 75% of New York City’s waste was dumped into
the Atlantic Ocean. As part of Waring’s initiative, household waste
was separated into three distinct categories and dealt with
accordingly: (a) Food Waste was steamed and compressed to produce
grease and fertilizer; (b) Rubbish from which paper and other
materials were recovered; and (c) Ash, which was landfilled along with
nonmarketable rubbish. This becomes New York City’s first recycling
program. (NYCWasteless – History)
===Manhattan and to a lesser extent Brooklyn and maybe Queens are a
lot bigger than originally. As ships got bigger, the space between
and under the short docks was filled in and longer piers extending
into deeper water for the bigger ships were built. I think this
happened several times. Battery Park City is built entirely on
landfill.