With a month until curbside composting starts, it’s important to reflect on the history of grassroots movements to keep uptown clean. In the summer of 1969, a group of young people blocked traffic on 110th Street with piles of garbage to protest poor sanitation services. The “Garbage Offensive,” as it was called, was an action engaged by the Young Lords Party; it was their first campaign. Today, however, it seems that sanitation is yet again an issue knocking on the doors of northern Manhattan, and Harlem in particular.

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