Clean-Up Corps Beautifies Communities, Bringing New York City Back

By Yehudit Garmaise

     The efforts of the city’s Clean-Up Corps to pick up trash and beautify neighborhoods “is another example of New York City coming back,” said Mayor Bill de Blasio, who explained that in addition to sprucing up the pandemic worn-city, the Clean Up Corps is providing New Yorkers with thousands of much-needed jobs.

      New York City’s Clean-Up Corps, which will soon be a group of 10,000 workers, just completed beautifying the Lower East Side.

     Showing the ‘Before and After’ photos of the areas in Manhattan in which the Clean-Up Corps worked, the mayor took pride in the corps’ “real impact to beautify communities, to clean up from COVID, and to move us forward.”

     A “Clean-Up Swarm,” as the mayor called the group of workers, will descend on Bed-Stuy on Monday before tackling every borough with its clean-up efforts. 

     “Leaders all over the city are saying, ‘Hey, send us a city clean-up corps! We want it, we need it,’” said Mayor de Blasio, who worked with one of the Clean-Up Swarms that was working in Brooklyn last month.

     “It was wonderful,” the mayor said. “The pride they took in their work. The thank-you’s they were getting from community members and the impact they were making.”

           “We borrowed from one of the most powerful examples in the history of New York and the history of the United States: The Civilian Conservation Corps, Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s New Deal,” said Mayor de Blasio, who is using the city’s share of the federal stimulus to pay New Yorkers $15 an hour.

     The city has already hired thousands of New Yorkers to serve in the Clean-Up Corps, and, the remainder will be hired in the next month or so, said the mayor, who said that anyone looking for a good job can do so by going to the city’s Clean-Up Corps website.

   “These are good-paying jobs,” Mayor de Blasio said. “They give people the opportunity to give back to New York City and do something great in our moment of need.”

    “Anyone looking for a good opportunity can join this group of extraordinary New Yorkers who are making a difference.”