By: Ariella Haviv

Eight-foot-high mountains of garbage, gnawed open by rats and marinated in slush, have become an inescapable feature of life on large swaths of New York City streets in the aftermath of Winter Storm Fern. Yet just steps away from this urban blight, the sidewalks surrounding Gracie Mansion—the official residence of Mayor Zohran Mamdani—have been scrubbed, shoveled, and cleared with a meticulousness that residents say borders on theatrical. The contrast has ignited a firestorm of outrage, one that The New York Post has documented in a report on Sunday, as New Yorkers question whether the city’s newest mayor is governing for the many or preserving comfort for the few.

A full week after the storm, Upper East Side residents living in the shadow of Gracie Mansion describe streets choked by refuse piled as high as six to eight feet, teeming with rodents and streaked with the unmistakable yellow stains of dog urine frozen into snowbanks. Yet the block along East 88th Street where the mayor resides stands in stark, almost surreal contrast—“squeaky clean,” as multiple neighbors told The New York Post, with snow removed curb to curb and sidewalks cleared down to bare concrete.

“I couldn’t believe it when I saw yesterday—a whole army of sanitation workers plowing and shoveling every bit of snow off of that side of the street,” said Nick Rivers, an Upper East Side resident walking his black Labrador near the mayor’s residence. Speaking to The New York Post on Sunday, Rivers gestured from the pristine side of the street toward the chaos across the way. “Clean as a whistle for the mayor,” he said. “Look at this side.”

“This side,” as Rivers put it, is a tableau of neglect. Garbage bags have sat unopened for days, some split open by rats, their contents spilling onto sidewalks already narrowed by snowbanks. The New York Post reported that in some parts of the neighborhood, the debris towers reach eight feet, forming grim corridors that residents must navigate daily.

The timing of the disparity has only fueled resentment. Late last week, as temperatures plunged and at least a dozen homeless New Yorkers died during the Arctic freeze gripping the five boroughs, Mayor Mamdani publicly congratulated himself on the city’s performance. “I’m new to the job,” he said Friday, according to The New York Post. “I know the burdens will get heavier, but right now I struggle to imagine how it could be better.”

He need only cross the street, his neighbors say.

“Don’t get me started,” said Attel, a West 88th Street resident, in comments to The New York Post. “I think his wife must have complained about the pee in the snow. I don’t even look when I come out of the building. It’s gross. The rats are inside the recycling bags.” Another local resident described conditions that have moved beyond inconvenience into disgust. “My street is lined with bags, many of them opened with crap all over the street,” the neighbor said. “My daughter had to dodge a used sanitary pad.”

The New York Post has chronicled similar scenes across the city, where the post-storm cleanup has faltered in ways longtime residents say they have never witnessed. Streets remain unplowed days after snowfall. Garbage collection has lagged well behind schedule. Rats—already an entrenched menace in New York—have thrived amid the abundance of accessible food waste.

Social media has become an echo chamber of frustration. One fed-up resident posted a photo of a stomach-turning mountain of trash bags on a city sidewalk with the caption, “Ah, New York City. The warm smell of uncollectedivism.” The New York Post reported that the quip went viral, capturing the bitter humor of a populace that feels abandoned by its own government.

Even celebrities have joined the chorus. Debra Messing, the “Will & Grace” star and longtime New York resident, vented her anger in a widely shared tweet that The New York Post highlighted as emblematic of citywide discontent. “Sitting in a taxi trying to get to an appointment,” she wrote Saturday. “Should take 20 minutes, we are at an hour and ten minutes and counting. The streets are a disaster. It hasn’t snowed in 5 days and the streets still haven’t been cleared.”

Her frustration turned to alarm as she described an ambulance stuck in gridlock, sirens wailing. “Poor ambulance sitting in essentially a parking lot with sirens going,” Messing wrote. “I’m praying for the person needing emergency care.” Reflecting on her years in the city, she added, “I’ve lived here for 15 years (this go around) and this has never happened. The plows have always worked around the clock to get the city back to working. I wonder what happened? Hang in there New Yorkers.”

The New York Post report noted that podcaster Stephen L. Miller responded dryly to Messing’s post: “The collective is warming up.” The sarcasm resonated in a city where patience is wearing thin.

For Mayor Mamdani, who took office just last month, the botched cleanup and the deaths of more than a dozen homeless New Yorkers during the deep freeze represent the first major tests of his administration. Critics argue that the optics alone—gleaming sidewalks outside Gracie Mansion amid squalor elsewhere—have undermined his populist rhetoric. Supporters counter that the city is grappling with extraordinary conditions and inherited systemic challenges.

City agencies have attempted to explain the delays. In a statement to The New York Post on Sunday, a representative for the Department of Sanitation emphasized that property owners, not the city, are responsible for clearing snow and ice from sidewalks. Trash collection, however, remains a municipal duty. The spokesperson said approximately 2,500 sanitation workers are pulling 12-hour shifts to clear bus stops, crosswalks, and fire hydrants—priorities that have pushed garbage pickups a day behind schedule.

“We are prioritizing trash and composting—stuff gets gross—over recyclables,” the statement said, as quoted by The New York Post. “But we are picking up all streams, all across the city, just on slight delay. Most New Yorkers will recall that this is standard practice during and after winter weather events.”

The Parks Department echoed similar sentiments, telling The New York Post that its workers are focused on bus stops, crosswalks, wheelchair ramps, and fire hydrants before resuming normal maintenance schedules. Yet these explanations have done little to mollify residents forced to live amid filth.

“It’s the most vile thing,” said Josh Tepper, a native New Yorker with a direct view of Gracie Mansion from his apartment. “I think it’s the worst in New York history.” Tepper’s anger was palpable as he spoke to The New York Post. “His one strip is nice, but where all the ‘civilians’ live, it’s a complete disaster. The socialist king gets to have a clean driveway. It just makes me enraged.”

Others echoed that sense of embarrassment and disbelief. Frederick Radie, another Upper East Side resident, told The New York Post, “It’s very dirty. Actually, we have people visiting, and it’s a little embarrassing.” Chris Kendal described a breakdown in basic services that defied logic. “They usually pick the recycle up on a Monday … so it’s almost been a week,” he said. “I don’t know why they can’t pick it up. I mean, buses are still running, and the city is still operating. So I’m not sure why they’re not able to reduce some of the garbage on the streets.”

The problem is not confined to Manhattan. The New York Post reported similar conditions in The Bronx, where trash was piled along the Grand Concourse just a block from where Mayor Mamdani held an event Saturday. Residents there voiced the same frustrations. “Every time it snows, it gets worse,” one neighbor said. “Right now, the people in the neighborhood cleaned up as much as we could, but the city hasn’t really been doing much.” He added pointedly, “Like down the block by the courthouse, they clean that up. The garbage attracts more rats, and it makes the neighborhood look bad.”

The perception that certain areas receive preferential treatment has struck a nerve in a city already divided by inequality. The New York Post report emphasized that while sanitation challenges after storms are not new, the unevenness of the response this time has been impossible to ignore. In past winters, residents recall, plows and garbage trucks worked around the clock to restore a semblance of normalcy. This time, many say, the effort feels halting and selective.

Political observers note that optics matter profoundly in New York, where mayors are judged as much on visible competence as on policy. For a leader who has styled himself as a champion of the working class, images of spotless sidewalks outside his residence amid rat-infested streets elsewhere are politically toxic. The New York Post report framed the situation as a defining early moment for Mamdani’s tenure—one that could shape public perceptions long after the snow melts and the trash is finally hauled away.

As temperatures slowly rise and the city inches toward recovery, the deeper questions remain. Was the disparity around Gracie Mansion the result of security protocols, coincidence, or conscious prioritization? Can the administration restore confidence in basic municipal services? And perhaps most importantly, will lessons be learned before the next storm hits?

For now, New Yorkers continue to trudge through garbage-plagued streets, dodging rats and holding their noses, while the mayor’s block gleams like an island of order in a sea of neglect. As The New York Post report made abundantly clear, the anger simmering beneath the piles of trash is not likely to dissipate as quickly as the snow.