Picking Up: On the Streets and Behind the Trucks with the Sanitation Workers of New York City
“Meticulous . . . [Nagle’s] passion for the subject really comes to life.”—The New York Times“WithPicking Up, Nagle joins the likes of Jane Jacobs and Jacob Riis, writers with the chutzpah to dig deep into the Rube Goldberg machine we call the Big Apple and emerge with a lyrical, clear-eyed look at how it works.”—Sydney Brownstone,Mother Jones“In her 10-year, sometime-firsthand study of ‘san man’ crews, cultural anthropologist Robin Nagle shines a light on their invisible lives . . . [she] evokes the physical and psychological toll of this dangerous, filthy, necessary work.”—Nature“Nagle worked as a garbage woman to better understand her subject, and that experience, combined with years of research, results in an intimate look at the mostly male work force as they risk injury and endure insult while doing the city’s dirty work. She also provides a fascinating capsule history of the department and the city’s 400-year relationship with waste.”—Publishers Weekly“War correspondents routinely embed with military units, and it’s only appropriate that Robin Nagle embedded with the people who daily go to war against New York’s city’s unimaginably unending flow of trash. In gripping and often harrowing detail, Robin Nagle shows us the unbelievable amount of crap the Strongest go through (and put up with) to keep a city clean, navigable and safe, all times of year, especially winter. Thanks to Nagle, you will never think about snow the same way again.”—Robert Sullivan, author ofRatsandMy American Revolution“Gamely braving ‘indications of unwelcome,’ Nagle – bad-ass and brilliant--insinuates herself inside sanitation garages to decode the folkways of a vast, and essential, city bureaucracy. Scholarly and funny,Picking Upis an irresistible work of participatory journalism and cultural anthropology.”—Elizabeth Royte, author ofGarbage Land“Robin Nagle’s brilliant book does not simply teach us about a reviled occupation. It serves as an inspiration to open our eyes to the unnoticed and unmarked experiences of city life.”—Mitchell Duneier, author ofSidewalk“Picking Upeloquently conveys the human stories behind the dirty work of trash collection. With a literary sensibility, Robin Nagle gets inside the guts of one of the largest rubbish hauling systems in the world, and, in doing so, reveals the dignity of these filthy, at times demeaning, always brutal labors. This book will change how you think about the people who haul away your trash.”—Heather Rogers, author ofGreen Gone WrongandGone Tomorrow: The Hidden Life of Garbage“Robin Nagle’sPicking Upbrings a necessary ‘bottom-up’ approach to the chronic problems of collection and disposal of municipal waste. The very human quality of the book should remind us that sanitation workers are not faceless drones, but public servants taking on tasks that any of us would shun. Nagle shows us that solid waste service might be a mundane task, but without it we couldn’t even step out of our houses without a sensory and environmental assault.Picking Upis a fine corrective.”—Martin V. Melosi, author ofThe Sanitary City