How To Trash a Neighborhood

Just where did city officials get the idea that it’s OK to line up city garbage trucks on a residential street, even when it means destroying the neighborhood?

For nearly a year, as The Post has been reporting, the Sanitation Department has parked several trucks on East 10th Street, between First and Second avenues in the East Village. That has cast a foul stench over the entire area, attracting rats and wreaking havoc on the quality of life.

Officials say the vehicles are only there temporarily, until a new site can be found. Trouble is, they’ve been saying that since September, when the Sanitation Department lost its lease at a West Side garage.

Neighbors and business owners are at their wits’ end. And who can blame them? Sunday, they joined with local politicians to demand the city end the nightmare.

“It’s disgusting,” fumed Rep. Carolyn Maloney. “And it needs to be solved immediately.” She accused the city of “moving into a neighborhood and slowly destroying it.”

Businesses, as well as residents, have been hard hit. At Tarallucci e Vino, for instance, no one was seated at the outdoor

tables this weekend.

The situation “stinks really bad, literally and metaphorically,” the owner of Pinks, a bar and grill in the area, Alex Sassaris, told The Post.

“Does the smell of an enormous garbage truck in front of you while you’re eating tacos sound appetizing?” Sassaris asked. That was months ago.

It’s yet another case of the city failing to do its basic job, while Mayor de Blasio is off playing carnival games at state fairs and giving “speeches” to near-empty rooms in his fantasy bid for the White House.

Need another example? This weekend, The Post reported that Bridge Park in The Bronx has been neglected and is now a virtual wasteland — marred by graffiti and its benches covered by vines — after spending $4 million in taxpayer money to spruce it up.

As for the garbage trucks, it’s gotten to the point where state lawmakers, Assemblywoman Deborah Glick and Sen. Brad Hoylman, are eyeing legislation to ban them.

It’s “a failure of the city administration,” rails Glick. She’s right: It shouldn’t take a state law to get the city to do its basic job.