This cartoon reveals how the practice of
dumping garbage into the waters around New York City has made a polluted
swamp of the harbor. The accumulated debris has grounded a Coney
Island ferry and a large ocean-going vessel. The figure on
the prow of the ship (perhaps symbolic of New York) frowns her
displeasure at the scene below. The fort on the left is Governors
Island, situated off the southern tip of Manhattan.
Sanitary conditions in New York City in
the nineteenth century were poor compared to today's standards. In
1880, New York became the first American city to reach a population of
one million, whose residents produced tons of garbage. Another key
source of pollution was the reliance on horses for transportation.
Until the spread of
the automobile in the early-twentieth century, the city's horses produced
400-1200 tons of manure and nearly 200
carcasses every day along the 250-plus miles of city streets. (In
the cartoon, notice the legs of a dead horse rising out of the
water.) The
inadequate disposal of the city's waste stemmed from under-funding,
limited authority, inefficiency, and corruption in government services
combined with only rudimentary knowledge of public health
necessities.
Some
of the garbage was put in landfills, but much of it was dumped into the
rivers and bays surrounding the city. As criticism mounted over the resulting pollution and stench, the state legislature passed a law
in 1871 making dumping in the Harlem River, East River, or Upper Bay a
misdemeanor offense. The garbage boats then moved, supposedly,
further out into Long Island Sound and the Atlantic Ocean.
In September 1879, though, Harper's
Weekly drew attention to a New York Herald exposé on rampant violations of the state law. Two Herald reporters
secretly watched eight garbage boats dump their cargo under dark of
night into the city's bordering waters. "Barge after barge
was emptied of its horrible load in positions where the tide, instead of
carrying the vile mass out to sea, would sweep it upon the adjacent
shores, or, where cinders and other heavy matter were dumped, leave it
to form dangerous shoals, and obstruct the channels." The
editor warned, "if the practice is not checked, the harbor will
be ruined."
The next week, Harper's
Weekly focused on the dangers that dumping posed to safe passage of
the waters. The paper quoted a shipping-firm representative who stressed that their
"pilots
and captains are constantly complaining that piloting is becoming more
and more difficult." The unlawful dumping of garbage had
altered the navigable waters so radically that their charts were
useless. The problem also limited sailing into and out of port to
certain times of the day. He concluded, "it is time that
a public movement was inaugurated to abolish the nuisances that are
endangering the lives of thousands of passengers weekly."
That sentiment was supported by much of the New York press.
The New York Evening Post
reported that British and other foreign ships were also contributing to
the problem by not only dumping their trash into New York Harbor, but
their stone and sand ballast as well. The journal called on the
state legislature to establish a well-equipped harbor police with the
authority to arrest the offending captains, foreign or domestic.
In 1880, under the auspices of the Manhattan Beach Company, the resort community of Coney Island initiated such a
police force to suppress
illegal dumping.
Yet, the problem
persisted. The text below this 1883 cartoon refers to a news story
entitled "The Garbage Blockade," which reports the grounding
of nine ocean steamers in New York Harbor over the previous six
months. The article cautions, "Filling up the ocean
channels of the chief sea-port upon the American continent is a very
serious matter." Two years later, the first garbage
incinerator was constructed on Governors Island in New York Bay, but
dumping continued to be the primary method of waste disposal into the
twentieth century.
Robert C. Kennedy
