Meet the NYC woman who's been clearing a 'cacophony' of trash from the Brooklyn Bridge

A wine-opener blade, a sturdy pair of gloves, a garbage bag … and one woman determined to make a difference: That’s what it took to clean swaths of hanging trash from one of New York City’s most iconic landmarks.

But will it last?

Brooklyn Heights resident Ellen Baum is facing this question after dedicating many hours to pulling, cutting, untying and collecting a variety of detritus that people had stuck to the chain-link fences on the Brooklyn Bridge walkway.

“I think it's something that we can just easily do as a community,” the 37-year-old Long Island native said on a recent sunny afternoon as she untangled some last scraps of blackened fabric, hoping no bridge walkers would come up behind her and leave more.

It was the end of a monthlong project for Baum, whose schedule as a tech worker allowed her to visit the bridge for much of February and spend hours cleaning. She documented her progress — and some of her nastiest finds — on social media, garnering praise and support.

In February, Baum attracted the notice of The New York Groove, a journalist-owned news outlet covering the city.

She said she didn't mind helping the city out after such a difficult winter, but she now wants to organize a regular community effort to keep the rubbish at bay in a sustained way.

“I would really love to start a monthly cleanup where I come out with other people, because it's much easier to do a quick sweep than obviously what I've been doing over the past few weeks, which is painstaking,” she said.

Baum said she noticed a “cacophony” of trash building up over the last few months, as she walked the bridge to commute to work and meet friends in Manhattan. One day this winter, she said, she decided to take matters into her own hands.

“I was walking across the bridge and I remember reading the news that morning and feeling really defeated about the state of just everything,” Baum said. “ It was one of those moments where I was like, you know, on a very micro level, I can effect change and do good things.”

The trashy trend may have its roots in a Parisian tradition of hanging tiny padlocks on bridges over the Seine and throwing the keys into the river below to symbolize eternal love. The French story didn't have a happy ending: In 2014, a part of the Pont des Arts’ railing collapsed under the weight of the locks, leading the city to outlaw the practice — though that hasn’t stopped lock-hangers.

There are locks on the Brooklyn Bridge fences, too, but in typical Big Apple fashion, the scene in the last several weeks has been grittier.

As Baum dug in, she found hair ties, locks of hair, receipts, Band-Aids, underwear, tampons and condoms affixed to the fences, perhaps by tourists wanting to leave pieces of themselves on the historic span. She said the weirdest item she found was a sunglasses bag containing a bottle of pills and covered with Hungarian text.

“I appreciate that there is some semblance of sentimentality behind it … but it’s not as innocuous as you might think at first glance,” Baum said.

She explained a lot of the trash eventually falls off the fences and can potentially hit cars or cyclists passing below before ending up in the East River. The small padlocks stuck to the bridge can also present a hazard if they come loose, Baum said, echoing the city government’s concerns in announcing an enforcement push against lock-hangers in 2016.

The city Department of Transportation, which owns and operates the Brooklyn Bridge, said in a statement it conducts “routine” sweeps along the walkway, but did not specify how often they occur. The agency did not answer follow-up questions.

In response to an inquiry about whether it has recently fined people for littering on the bridge, the NYPD referred Gothamist to the city Department of Sanitation. A spokesperson for the sanitation department said littering on the bridge is illegal, and the department will continue to assess whether fines are necessary to keep it clean.

One afternoon this week, Gothamist spotted an official DOT sign on the bridge warning about a $100 fine, but it was so covered in stickers and graffiti that the prohibited action was impossible to read.

Baum said so far no city officials have reached out to thank her for her efforts. But she said she did receive some assistance cleaning up, including from organized litter crews like the Pickup Pigeons, who saw her series of Reddit posts about her work.

“They met me on the bridge, tapped me on the shoulder and said, ‘We are here to help,’” she said.

Some people online offered to give Baum various tools, like bolt cutters for the padlocks, which she said she hasn’t yet accepted. Others wanted to send her money, but Baum said she declined.

“That’s not why I’m doing it,” she said. “I feel like I'm already getting the thanks from just it [the litter] not being here and having people sing my praises when they pass me here.”

As Baum cleared the last bits of trash on the fences — at least at that point in time — Downtown Brooklyn resident Joe Colletti walked by and congratulated her on her accomplishment.

“[The bridge] is beautiful by itself. I don't see why people need to add things to make it uglier,” he said.

Baum said bridge walkers occasionally came up right behind her and tied their own mementos to the bridge as she took other items down. She said she can’t predict whether the cleanliness will continue in the long term, but has already started a website for people looking to get involved in community cleanup events.

“Maybe I'll celebrate by getting a really special hair tie for myself as a memento for my time cutting so many off,” Baum said, laughing.

“I don't think it's the biggest problem in the city,” she added. “But I do think it's one that I can solve.”