Cleanup crews descended on a stretch of the service road along the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway Thursday, but not without controversy.
Some residents say the wooded space has long been an eyesore. They claim that over the years, an extremely large amount of garbage and remnants of homeless encampments have long gone unchecked.
Community Board 1 District Manager Gerald Esposito claims cleanups, which are the responsibility of the city Department of Transportation, have been neglected. When he reached out to the DOT about an accumulation of trash, he says the department told him a cleanup had already been conducted.
?After they allegedly cleaned it, I saw truck tires, lots of debris,? Esposito said. ?It wasn?t really any change from what I saw before.?
Esposito says when he noticed a large amount of trash, also captured by News 12 Brooklyn?s cameras, he called in state contractors to get the job done. Those employees were the workers residents witnessed Thursday.
A spokesperson for the city DOT said that trash at the site had already accumulated since a cleanup took place last week.
Residents are pleased with the garbage removal, but openly question how long it will last.