Neighbors Get Swept Up in Man's 100-Day NYC Street Cleanup

In New York City, something magical has happened along the sidewalk in Washington Heights that can best be described in a metaphor.

In the East, the lotus is not only a food source, an ornamental, and a religious symbol, it also serves as a convenient allegory—because it grows best in the dirtiest water.

So it was with David, a young New Yorker who felt “powerless” to change the circumstances on his block at 171st between Broadway and Fort Washington. Everywhere a piece of litter could be, it was. Whether wrapped around the bolts securing a fire hydrant or choking the tree plots on the sidewalk, litter was everywhere.

So David bought some bags and a grabber stick and announced on his TikTok account that he was going to clean the litter off of a single NYC block every day for 100 days.

The project, like the lotus blooming out of sludge, revealed a caring community hungry for change, just waiting for someone to show that it was possible to do something.

“When this account went viral, I learned that litter was correlated with pride and a sense of community,” David wrote in his 100th day montage video. “I could have picked up trash my whole life, but instead I want to give people a reason not to litter.”

The reason was simple: that littering would spoil the beauty that David and an ever-proliferating number of local volunteer comrades worked to bring about along this special neighborhood in the Big Apple.

What started as a solo cleanup has grown into a broader community effort, with local businesses donating plants, lumber, and equipment to help improve neighborhood spaces. It wasn’t long before many of his neighbors were there right beside him, picking up litter, badgering city officials to make more of an effort to keep streets clean, and cultivating beds of flowers and plants where the city’s trees grow on the sidewalk.

For this was the ultimate culmination of David’s good work. As much as his videos went viral, so too did his idea of fencing off little flower beds under the trees, laying down soil and mulch, and planting flowers to encourage neighbors and passersby to keep the streets clean.

His new green thumbs have pulled him as far afield as the mountains upstate looking for native plants to put into the beds along the streets.

MORE VIRAL MOVEMENTS: Quirky Campaign Leaves Nice Surprises on Cars of Anyone Who Took Cabs Home from the Bar

“Litter can kill plants, but plants can also teach people not to litter,” David says. “People don’t notice a dying tree, but when flowers magically appear for the first time in decades, people notice when they die.”