NYC NOW - Mayor Adams’ Trash Legacy and NYC’s Annual Bird Count

Episode Date: December 17, 2025

One of Mayor Eric Adams’ most lasting legacies might not be a drop in crime or the corruption scandals that plagued City Hall under his watch. It’s that he started to get mountains of trash bags off the sidewalks and into containers. Plus, bird lovers and scientists unite for the annual Christmas bird count.

Will Mayor Adams be remembered as leader of the city's trash revolution? And, it's a bird. It's a plane. No, it's a bird. New York City's annual bird count is underway. From WNYC, this is NYC now. I'm Jenae Pierre. New York City Comptroller Brad Lander says an audit of the city's dysfunctional school bus system finds poor performance by companies and weak oversight from officials. Despite investment and successive promises to improve, services remain poor. Meanwhile, DOE has failed to take adequate corrective action in the face of this appalling performance. The audit says the city doesn't hold companies accountable for problems.

It says the Education Department failed to collect $43 million in penalties for driver's failure to log on to GPS, as required. And upgrades to technology to improve routes still hasn't been delivered. Lander says the incoming Mamdani administration should appoint a school bus czar to implement major reform. The Education Department says it's committed to improving service. New York City Mayor Eric Adams says New Yorkers shouldn't merely remember him as the first sitting mayor in the modern era to ever be federally indicted. Don't stay on one frost. Talk about the first mayor being indicted, but damn it, don't miss the first mayor. The other first that this mayor has been able to accomplish, have it all come together.

Adams delivered a farewell address Tuesday at City Hall. He touted his policy achievements, including lowering crime, providing temporary shelter for tens of thousands of migrants, passing an ambitious rezoning for new housing that he's dubbed the City of Yes, and putting speed limits on e-bikes. His corruption indictment, however, led to the departure of four deputy mayors and left him with low approval ratings. Trump administration officials eventually ordered the charges to be dropped. The mayor did not take any questions during the press conference. Now, let's talk more about Adams' legacy. If you ask my colleague Liam Quigley, it's trash. No, literally. Adams started to get mountains of trash bags off the sidewalks and into containers. Liam has been looking into what the sanitation department

accomplished under Mayor Adams. He says it all started when the city set around. requirement for owners of small family homes to put all their trash and bins for curbside collection. Then the same requirement was made for apartment buildings with one to nine units. Liam says now we're beginning to see the culmination of the mayor's trash revolution with empire bins. Everyone's going to notice, if you've ever been to Europe, you've seen these big on-street containers that sit at the curb off the sidewalk. We're already starting to get those in parts of Upper Manhattan, Morningside Heights, Hamilton, Hamilton High, Now they're coming to downtown Brooklyn, Fort Green, Clinton Hill.

Though there's still plenty of trash bag mountains across the city, Liam says the empire bins will help make them disappear, especially in congested areas in Manhattan. The plan is that by 2032, every building with 30 or more units is going to be using empire bins. Depending on your philosophy about public space, these empire bins could become an issue for drivers looking for a parking spot. Council member Sandy Nurse is on the sanitation committee.

And she says, If we want to be able to consume and generate trash at the levels that we are generating, there are going to be tradeoffs. Liam expects some New Yorkers to push back over the use of the public space. But now, the plan moves to a Mamdani administration. And Liam says, He said he supports the Empire Bins. It's one of the few things where he aligns with Adams.

And with that, the trash revolution continues. That's WNYC's Liam Quigley. New York City's burr count is officially underway. More on that after the break. There's a holiday tradition in New York City that dates back to the year 1900. And no, it doesn't involve the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree, ice skating, or caroling. It's the Audubon Christmas Bird Count, where bird lovers, scientists, and just about anyone who's curious,

can join to help track bird populations in and around the area for the next few weeks. The Christmas Bird Count is one of my favorite holiday traditions. It's charming and old-fashioned and forward-looking and so important for science. That's Jessica Wilson. executive director of the New York City Bird Alliance, which runs the count. She says, before the count started over a century ago, people would go on Christmas hunts to kill birds. Jessica says some people even made those dead birds fashion items. People use their feathers on fancy ladies' hats, and ornithologists and naturalists were noticing the bird populations were

in decline, and there were a bunch of birds that were really on the brink of extinction. But she says an ornithologist by the name of Frank Chapman offered an alternative to the Christmas hunt. He proposed that instead of killing birds, people should count them. That started in Central Park and a few other locations around the country. And today, more than 80,000 people across the country count birds these last few weeks of December. Yeah, I know what you're thinking. Who's out counting birds in the cold? Well, Jessica says there are a surprising number of birds in New York City, even in the one.

winter. I should say that New York City is a biodiversity hotspot. There are more than 300 different kinds of birds that come through New York every year. She says on an average winter day in New York, you could see more than a hundred birds. Like chickadees and titmice, juncos, and woodpeckers to really extraordinary birds like owls and, if you're lucky, a bald eagle. I can't front y'all. It would be pretty cool to see a bald eagle. Jessica says a typical bird count is fun, friendly, welcoming, and accessible. Thinking about joining the count? Here's what to expect.

Jessica says volunteers are paired up with an official compiler, someone who organizes the count. Then groups go out to their local park or green space to count birds over a period of a few hours. Next, the group records the number birds they see in a particular location.

That data is then compiled across the whole city. It's fed up to the National Audubon Society, which analyzes all the data from across the country to look for changes in bird populations and trends in birds. That's Jessica Wilson, Executive Director of New York City Bird Alliance. Are you the type of person that likes to try new foods? I sure am. And if you're headed to your local farmer's market, consider trying an unfamiliar fruit. Amelia Tarpie is a program and publicity

manager for GrowNYC Green Markets. She's going to tell us all about Quince, spelled Q-U-I-N-C-E, Quince. I feel like Quince at one time was a highly popular fruit, you know, in the Americas and elsewhere around the world, but in the Americas, it's sort of fallen out of favor in recent decades, and a lot of people don't know what quints are. They're a beautiful yellow, golden fruit, and they can. kind of look like a cross between a pear and an apple, but it has this very like hard flesh. It has this soft peach-like fuzz on the outside of it and they are super aromatic.

You often smell them before you see them. They have this sort of pineappily, tropical guava rose floral scent to them. However, if you try to bite into one, you will not enjoy that experience. They're extremely hard and the flesh is kind of bitter and astringent before you cook it. When you do cook it, the flesh kind of turns from this pale, whitish color to this deep, gorgeous pink color. One thing that's really cool about Quinn's is it has a really high level of pectin in it, so it's really good for making jam. And it's the fruit that's used to make Mimbrio. Mambrio is sort of a popular fruit paste often used in Spanish cuisine or across Latin America.

To make Mambrio, you just wash, peel, and core, and then, you just wash, peel, and core, and then, chop up that quince and simmer it in water until it's nice and soft then you would drain that out and puree it and then you would combine it with a little bit of lemon juice and sort of an equal amount of sugar as you have paste and reduce it over medium heat stirring frequently as you go just to make sure it doesn't burn and then you pour that into a parchment lined dish and chill in the fridge overnight it's really delicious paired with like a hard cheese like a manchego or really sharp cheddar. And, you know, it's a nice thing to sort of have on the cheeseboard as you go into the holidays

or if you want to, you know, make something, gifting something brio is really nice. Amelia Tarpie is a program and publicity manager for GrowNYC Green Markets. She says right now, green markets across the city are selling quints at roughly $4 a pound. Try it out and let me know your thoughts. Send us an email at NYC now at WNYC. dot org. Thanks for listening to NYC now from WNYC. I'm Jene Pierre. We'll be back tomorrow. Thank you.