July 17, 1969: Poetic images conjuring a lazy summer at Grand Army Plaza in Manhattan contrasted with the filthy reality of an epidemic of litter: “A tune floated down from the limestone fountain, but its words were blurred and its tone rasping,” The Times evoked. “Its singer lay stretched out in the shallow water of the highest basin, and now, noticing the people who sat on the benches below, he pulled a bottle of whiskey from his pocket.” The little park had become a “dumping ground,” forcing intensified action from the Parks Department, which directed its four-man squad to “visit it three times a day, and new trash cans were placed in each corner. But yesterday the black metal baskets were filled and the overflow littered the ground,” reported The Times. Photo: Jack Manning/The New York Times
