Never Forget

The Department played a vital role in the clean up and restoration of the area surrounding the World Trade Center, the financial district and Wall Street in the days and weeks following the September 11th terrorist attack. It also was able to maintain normal cleaning, recycling and trash collections above Canal Street in Manhattan and throughout the other four boroughs.

The Department’s tremendous efforts became even more dramatic when the main office at 125 Worth Street, a few short blocks from the Twin Towers collapse, was left without communications in the wake of the disaster. The Department temporarily relocated headquarters to the Central Repair Shop in Queens — thanks to the efforts of Deputy Commissioner for Support Operations Jerry Della Corte — where staff and equipment for the Ground Zero operation were coordinated by First Deputy Commissioner Peter Montalbano.

The Department’s two-pronged operation involved cleaning up the areas surrounding what had been the Twin Towers, while providing uninterrupted cleaning and collection schedules to the remainder of the City.

In lower Manhattan, 800 Sanitation Workers and supervisory personnel worked around the clock on rotating 12-hour shifts — despite the fear and concern for further building collapses — using hoses, flusher trucks, street sweepers, fuel trucks, refuse trucks, front end loaders, hand brooms, and open dump trucks to clear debris. Wearing protective clothing (face masks, eye protection, gloves) they hosed down buildings, loaded debris, swept streets (manually and with mechanical street sweepers) and flushed streets.

At Ground Zero, the Department provided trucks and other heavy equipment to swiftly remove WTC debris during the initial rescue and recovery phase. The Department reopened two dormant marine transfer stations from which debris was taken by barge and truck to the closed Fresh Kills Landfill on Staten Island. The landfill was reopened by the Governor on an emergency basis to accept the WTC debris because it provided an excellent and secure area for investigators to spread out debris to search for clues and evidence.