30,000 30-gallon bags from around the square every month?
That's about 1,000 bags a day!!! I find that hard to believe but then again that would be a nice tax writeoff :)

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You don't have to look real hard in this city to find developers and property managers with no common sense. How else could Newport have happened?

?I said, ?Listen, guys, the heat?s going to increase,? ? Smartt said. ?The property manager took it under advisement and made the decision to allow us to locate the Dumpster on the site next to the parking lot.?

Well, it's good that the article got some action (presumably), but wouldn't it be nice if someone with a moderate amount of common sense recognized this would be a problem, BEFORE they started dumping this trash on the curb every day? Or is that wishful thinking...?

BTW, this is the JJ link to the follow-up.

The piles of garbage bags that have been collecting along Journal Square Plaza every morning may soon be relocated, thanks to a Jersey Journal story in yesterday?s edition, The Jersey Journal reports.
Don Smartt, who runs the Journal Square Restoration Corp., said he shared yesterday?s story with Multi-Employer Property Trust, the main investor behind a twin-tower project set for the plaza, and the company agreed to put a trash receptacle on the property so the bags can have a new collection point out of the way of pedestrians.

Here's another question - you can see the guys dumping these bags on the sidewalk just about every morning, from 8-9am, to be picked up "at noon". If they HAVE to be in that location, why can't this be done in the middle of the night, instead? The garbage collection for my condo happens at like 2am - why can't JSQ do the same thing?

I've always felt that this is also encouraged by the cops, who don't like cars stopping and standing there by the curb. Of course if that really is the case, you have to wonder, how is a pickup truck that's unloading, then a garbage truck that's loading, any different?

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There's some definite validity to this. I'll also pose the question - what are the chances you would EVER see similar mounds of trash, every day, outside of the Grove St. or Newport PATH stations?

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At least she doesn't urinate on crowds of people like her predecessor?

Nidia Lopez. Famous for living in Florida and not paying taxes in Jersey City, at all, for three years. I think by now she has cleaned up her image but she's hardly presented herself as someone who care about the community she represents. Mostly when she's in the news now its about her squabbles within the City Council. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nidia_Rivera_Lopez

The problem with Jersey City there is no city pride, Here in Greenville you see allot of pride on certain blocks, I was quite surprise how well some of the homes are kept, but other blocks are just nasty. You see that throughout the city. There is no real pride, so things like this go on and most people walk over the garbage and wont think twice. Most of us are not from here so most care about their investment and not much more. Who is the council person for this area, and why are they allowing this?

I will add my voice to the question"Where were they putting all that trash before?" Who's brilliant idea was it to pile it up on a part of the plaza that is both the most visible to passing traffic AND in the ONLY PLACE (aside from on the stairs) where it could impede the flow of pedestrian traffic in such a sprawling open space? Something not mentioned above, even after the trash is gone, the greasy nasty liquid that oozes out of the trash bags onto the pavement remains and is building up into an ugly slimy sludge, adding to the blight of the forsaken PATH plaza. Too bad there isn't a giant empty vacant lot nearby where a simple wooden pen could be constructed to hold the trash bags.....OH WAIT, THERE IS!

So where did they used to put all of this trash, up until a month or two ago? This is a relatively new thing, them lining JFK with all of it (which effectively almost completely blocks off the only pick-up and drop-off point that every car/van uses).

And where is all this trash coming from? Didn't the head of the Port Authority make a big deal about how they don't have any trash recepticles on any of their sites, in an effort to make sure that a terrorist can hide any explosives?

The plaza at Journal Square in Jersey City has seemed more like a garbage dump recently than a major transportation hub.
Bags filled with garbage line the sidewalk near the Journal Square kiosk every weekday morning, after being collected and dropped there by the 10-member staff of the Journal Square Restoration Corp.
The group, which has the motto ?The New Journal Square? emblazoned on their uniforms, collects about 30,000 30-gallon bags from around the square every month, according to its chief administrator, Don Smartt.
But to get the Jersey City Incinerator Authority to pick up the trash every weekday, Smartt?s crew has to put the trash in one convenient location so a JCIA truck can drive up at lunchtime and take it away, according to Smartt.
?We know it doesn?t look the greatest, but I got to tell you, any other place that we put it, we?re blocking up parking or we?re blocking up a travel lane,? he said.
Pedestrians told The Jersey Journal that the line of full trash bags sometimes reaches from Bergen and Sip avenues all the way to Pavonia Avenue. They make the square ?very unsanitary,? said Christopher Lanzoni.
Lanzoni, 58, said he fears the daily presence of so much garbage will attract rats.
?How can you make it look like the new Journal Square if they keep on making it look like the old Journal Square?? he said.
Danny Russo, meanwhile, said pedestrians often fight for sidewalk space with the garbage bags.
?It gets so crowded that only one person can walk at a time,? said Russo, 58.
Smartt said he wants to put the garbage in a receptacle on the fenced-in property designated for a pair of residential towers at Sip and Bergen avenues but that the site developers have not returned his phone calls.
Smartt?s crew often takes the bags to the JCIA dump themselves, but that ties up two crew members for about 45 minutes per trip, he said.
JCIA Executive Director Oren K. Dabney said he?s in discussions with Ward C Councilwoman Nidia Lopez to find a better place to keep the trash bags.

Journal staff writer M.G. De Guzman contributed to this story.
Journal Square Trash