A Successful year (in my opinion)

BY MELITTA ANDERMAN

I started writing for “Our Town” on a whim. I moved to Yorkville after literally being in the neighborhood for years, as a tourist eating in restaurants I loved, buying tasty edibles that my palate remembered from my Austrian childhood and just strolling through side streets among the age-old brownstones. So it seemed fitting to reminisce and write my first little story about “Olde Yorkville.” And so it goes, almost a year later, and I’m still turning out tidbits about the quality of life in Manhattan. I’m sorry that I insulted the intrusion of the pigeon population but I’m not backing down. I will not start a charitable campaign for their upkeep.

I’m big on issues that I believe need to be addressed and I have become more observant. I’ve succeeded in solving some and lost a lot. My biggest unsolved issue was the lack of lights while driving at night on the West Side Highway and the FDR Drive. There would be intervals when all was light and then stretches of pure darkness so one had to navigate with 20/20 vision to make out the lane you were supposed to drive in. How come it was never corrected?

How did other drivers feel plunging along on these unlit highways? All I remember is consistently calling the right New York City agencies and reporting the lack of light. The best answer I ever got was that someone had stolen some electrical parts from the highway that were never replaced. I asked why the department in charge was not aware of these missing parts. Well, gee whiz, how would they know unless someone reported this misdemeanor. It’s years later and I don’t drive on these highways on a regular basis. But when I do and see no overhead lights and I feel ambitious I’ll call 311 to report these outages. I go through the tired Q&A that 311 demands: what intersection am I calling from, what is the street address and who am I. I’m the same anxiety ridden frustrated citizen trying to find out who is in charge of supervising the lighting of these highways. If anyone out there knows who to contact, please get in touch with me through “Our Town.”

I’m pretty certain the garbage can on my corner was there during the Depression era and has never been replaced. In this respect I lucked out as I found a super-friendly manager of the Sanitation Department who would call me and report on garbage collection pickups for my neighborhood. He was very polite and anxious to assure me that all was in order at his end. Great, but my end was as messy as before. Maybe someone could invent a can that would grind all the refuse as it is thrown in so it wouldn’t end up littering the street and enticing sniffing rats. But why ask for the moon when we have the stars, as the famous quote from the film “Now Voyager” with Bette Davis goes. My star is the opening of our new subway line. I can’t wait to take my first ride and while I’m down there, will check out the new amenities, like refuse disposals and lighting fixtures.