Philadelphia Streets Dept. cleans up after Eagles and fans celebrate
The rented equipment used for the Eagles Super Bowl celebration was already disappearing from the Benjamin Franklin Parkway Friday morning, February 9, but the Mother of all Celebrations will not soon be forgotten.
Freddy Garcia flew in from California.
"Honestly, I've never, ever, ever seen anything like this," said Garcia to Fox29's Bruce Gordon. "It was just insane! Like, there was so much love, so much energy..."
And so much trash. By midday Friday, 60 tons of it, collected by Streets Department crews-- more than for the Phillies World Series party or the Papal visit. The steady rain of Feb. 7 and Thursday's huge crowds left the Eakins Oval looking like a battlefield and left Streets Department workers like Shadee Tidwell feeling like he was bailing out the Titanic with a teacup.
"Right now the trash, the cans…is deep in the mud," said Tidwell, his leaf/trash blower in hand. "So I've got to kind of like dig in."
Streets Department officials say their cleanup literally followed the parade up Broad Street, but admit the Parkway was a chore, in their biggest job ever.
"As expected, the massive crowds along the Art Museum and Parkway caused some delays," said Commissioner Carlton Williams at a City Hall news conference. "Which made it challenging for us to access the area to clean the Parkway right away.
As for the worst job ever?
That belongs to Allysson Santos, cleaning out portable toilets that-- if crowd estimates were even close to correct-- averaged nearly 1100 users per potty.
"Bad," said Santos, when asked about the day-after status of the toilets. "You can check. They were full to the top."
We'll take his word for it.
To no one's surprise, the mess did not end at the Parkway. Some nearby neighbors complain their streets were trashed, without consequence.
"No police in the neighborhood at all," said Daniel Solis-Cohen. "Much like the Fourth of July and Made in America, the neighborhood is forgotten about."