Retired Sanitation worker becomes a writer

AT THE Department of Sanitation, you can always find something in the trash — but can you find a metaphor?

Jim Hart did, as well as simile, a dash of foreshadow and, most importantly, a host of colorful characters.

The Brooklyn-born retired city sanitation employee has fueled his experiences with New York’s Strongest into a budding writing career.

Hart, 67, has already self-published a book of poetry titled “Ramblings of a One-Eyed Garbage Man.”

His time in sanitation is also the grist for his first novel, the noir mystery “A Tom Collins To Go.”

“Life in sanitation as a clerk in a district, you work with a lot of ‘Brooklyn guys,’” Hart said. “Some of those guys had a knack for wisecracking. I think the way I write.”

Hart joined Sanitation in 1974. Since he is legally blind in one eye, he was never assigned to a collection truck, but given clerical duties at different garages.

One of his first postings was at a now-defunct garage on the Red Hook waterfront, which became a backdrop for parts of “A Tom Collins To Go,” which takes place in Brooklyn in the 1940s.

“A few characters end up in the Gowanus Canal,” he joked.

During his career with the Sanitation Department, he worked his way through the ranks to serve as the agency’s deputy director of public affairs and director of correspondence for the Sanitation Police.

He worked under former Sanitation Commissioner John Doherty, and counts him and Deputy Commissioner Vito Turso as “two of the most influential people in my life.” it enhanced

“People say that Sanitation is a family and that’s what it is,” Hart said. “Being transferred over the years, I’ve met hundreds and hundreds of people. To this day, I can name the people I didn’t get along with on just one hand.”

Hart retired in 2004, and quickly caught the writing bug.

“When you’re a guy from Brooklyn with only a high school education, the last thing you’d expect is to become a writer,” Hart said.

Yet the words came easy for him.

Before his tour in trash, Hart was a drummer in a band. He also worked on song lyrics, so poetry came to him naturally.

Yet his poems aren’t about recycling pickups — they’re about everything else under the sun.

“It’s mostly a collection of narrative works,” Hart said. “There’s anguish, the human experience, veterans returning from war, young teenagers committing suicide, women suffering from breast cancer. The subjects are laid open and made bare.”

“A Tom Collins To Go” soon took off — as did his notoriety.

People are now inviting Hart to do readings in Manhattan, something that leaves the humble Brooklynite anxious.

“I’ve done a few readings in Brooklyn, but got a bit nervous about going to Manhattan, as if somewhere on the Brooklyn Bridge words change,” he said.

But his Sanitation family quickly grounded him.

“I usually have coffee with one of my friends from the department,” Hart said. “When I told him I was nervous, he looked at me and said, ‘Go out there and read!’” “That’s all I needed,” he joked. “Ramblings of a One-Eyed Garbage Man” and “A Tom Collins to Go” are both available on Amazon.com.