Allan Appel Photo
Crystal Reaves could not understand why people would leave their shorts, bras, and other personal stuff in the four bathrooms at Lighthouse Point Park, which she hosed down with bleach and water beginning at 7 a.m. Tuesday.
The morning after throngs jammed Lighthouse to celebrate Independence Day, park workers were still wading through the debris left behind — as were neighbors outside the park, some of whom said their lawns were trashed.
So despite frightening amounts of trash, the combined efforts of parks staffers and neighbors picking left grounds and area streets if not pristine, then pretty clean.
Reaves, a seasonal worker in her second year with the parks department, was one of about half dozen staffers doing the final “poking” of errant pieces of trash that appeared like large chunks of dandruff here and there on an otherwise attractive greensward.
She said department trucks carted away the bulk of the litter along with the contents of approximately 50 trash cans of garbage between 6 p.m. and darkness Monday.
Parks Director Bob Levine said he had no official numbers yet on attendance or trash, but he estimated that about 1,400 cars, the maximum allowed, were parked at Lighthouse Monday and that 8,000 to 12,000 people showed up. As in previous years, the park reached capacity and was closed to cars well before noon.
In the evening, staffers began asking visitors to leave at 6 p.m., to stagger the departure and to enable staffers to get started on the trash.
Outside the park’s gates, Morris Cove neighbors like Michelle Smith of Morris Avenue were up early before work picking up bottles, wrappers, and the usual detritus.
Contributed Photo
“Patriotic” trash left near the Pardee Morris House.
“The neighborhood was totally disrespected,” she said. Smith has lived in Morris Cove for three years. She said the three big weekends — July 4, Memorial Day and Labor Day — “always cause havoc in our neighborhood.”
According to Deputy Director of Public Works Howard Weissberg, city sanitation crews were on a normal holiday schedule and didn’t deploy any extra staff to work on the streets. So the clean-up was a local event.
He added that the department instituted an aggressive bulk pick-up citywide in the run-up to July 4th, and that mosquito spraying had commenced as well before the holiday, including at catch basins in Morris Cove.
Smith reported that litter remained along the sidewalks and especially the shrub line near the sidewalks even after the early-morning efforts.
“I give them a lot of credit, the sanitation teams, and the local neighbors who cleaned up,” she said.
Of the visitors: “I’m looking for people who come to the park to treat it as if it were their home, because it’s ours. These people [the parks staffers] should not have to clean up so.”
Reaves was upset with what she’d found in the bathrooms. “How do you leave your shorts, shoes, and even bras?” she asked. Coworker Delroy Needham’s beef was with the many grillers whom he noticed on the 4th dropping their hot coals on the grass and even at the base of young trees.
“We’re trying to grow this nice,” Needham said. He said that while on duty on the Fourth he asked one woman to deposit her coals in the designated red metal containers, but he was rebuffed. “Why do people do that?” he said.
According to Parks Director Bob Levine, that particular bad habit is nothing new. “It’s not just bad for the trees, but [for] kids running around,” he said.
When people use their own grill, some don’t think to pour water on the coals. “There are some who are irresponsible,” he said.
Levine did report, however, that new park fees resulted in markedly increased income and obviously did not turn people away. It now costs non-New Haveners $20 (up from $10) to park in the park, $30 if they’re from out of state.
The increase took effect on the first day of July. For the first four days of the month including the holiday, Levine reported,the city took in $30,000 as opposed to $20,000 last year.