DSNY Remembers

a tribute to the New York City Department of Sanitation’s 9/11 rescue and recovery efforts

 

“Nobody else is going to tell our story.”

— Dennis Diggins, retired First Deputy Commissioner, DSNY

This exhibit explores the incredible— and largely unknown— story of the vital role that the New York City Department of Sanitation (DSNY) played in the rescue and recovery efforts following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. DSNY led the debris removal efforts to facilitate the rescue work of FDNY and NYPD, hosted the forensics operation at the former Fresh Kills Landfill, and cleaned and provided dust suppression for all of lower Manhattan, allowing the City to eventually re-open. All the while, it continued to provide its regular services of refuse collection and street cleaning for all New Yorkers, uninterrupted.

Facts + Figures

In the first 24 hours:

  • 1,500 sanitation workers dispatched to assist with debris removal + cleaning

  • 28 pieces of heavy machinery dispatched from Fresh Kills to the WTC site, along with 59 dump trucks, 50 front-end loaders + 10 flushers from the outer boroughs

Tonnages:

  • Over 1.6 million tons of debris removed from Ground Zero

  • Over 400,000 tons of scrap metal recycled

  • Over 1.4 million tons of material searched + screened at Fresh Kills, down to 1/4” in diameter

DSNY provided:

  • Fuel for all vehicles + equipment at Ground Zero in the first two weeks

  • Light packs for night operations

  • Street cleaning and dust suppression

  • Debris removal, via truck and barge

  • Removal of rotting food from abandoned homes + businesses

At Fresh Kills, the DSNY-hosted operation included:

  • 25 city, state, and federal agencies + 14 private contractors, who logged

  • 1.7 million hours of work

  • over 15,000 workers fit-tested for PPE

  • a core team of only about 200 DSNY employees, most with specialized knowledge of landfill equipment

The NYPD and FBI-led screening process recovered:

  • 54,000+ personal items

  • 1,358 vehicles

  • $78,318.47 in domestic + foreign currency

  • 4,257 human remains, resulting in the identification of over 300 victims

Timeline:

  • Cleaning in Manhattan continued for nearly 9 months, concluding June 7, 2002

  • The Fresh Kills recovery operation continued for nearly 10 months, with the last material processed July 26, 2002

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the untold story.

Unfortunately, most of the narratives surrounding 9/11 rescue and recovery erased the important work of DSNY and the role of Sanitation Workers as first responders.

The countless labors and life saving work of DSNY isn’t only invisible during times of tragedy and disaster. It’s often gone unnoticed on a regular basis. Given the necessary and important task of managing, organizing, sorting, and transporting waste, for the sake of public health and safety, it’s time for the untold stories of DSNY to be shared.

a new chapter

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