Clean Team keeps hot spots looking spiffy
FORT LAUDERDALE — An anti-grime offensive is sweeping the city’s most popular locales.
And scraping up gum. And peeling off stickers. And picking up litter. Doing what needs to be done, however small the task.
It’s the Clean Team, a new city work crew deployed daily along 15 miles of the city’s most heavily traveled sidewalks.
“This is something we came up with out of necessity,” said Dave Marcus, supervisor of the dozen-member team. “The bigger picture is overall cleanliness. That’s what drives what we do.”
In a city that thrives on tourism, looking good is just as important as the food its restaurants serve, the comfort of its
Spick-and-span
SunSentinel.com/Cleanteam hotel beds and the quality of its entertainment venues.
“People are attracted to warm, inviting, clean environments,” said Mike Hill, out for a morning bite at the Old Fort Lauderdale Breakfast House on Southwest Second Street in the city’s Himmarshee entertainment district. “If you come to a trashed-out street, who wants to go there?”
Hill watched approvingly as Stanley Torebka, outfitted in a yellow, Clean Team T-shirt and orange safety vest, swept up debris from a sidewalk across the street.
Besides Second Street, the crews clean Riverwalk, Las Olas Boulevard out to South- east16th Avenue, Southeast17th Street from U.S. 1 to the Intracoastal bridge, Andrews and Third avenues from Northeast to Southeast Sixth streets, Broward Boulevard from Federal Highway west to Seventh Avenue, and State Road A1A from Fort Lauderdale Beach Park to Sunrise Boulevard. A small section in the Galt area is done one day a week.
Torebka, one of the first hires in January, quickly learned the job is never finished. He pushes a yellow-and-blue customized laundry cart, which holds a trash can for debris and has pouches for his many tools.
“The more you go on, you look around, you find more things that need to be done,” Torebka said. “I think we’re getting a good handle on it, but it’s a constant thing.”