Sanitation worker’s 55,000-piece trash museum on Upper East Side faces uncertain future
After 34 years collecting discarded items from Manhattan streets, Nelson Molina’s 55,000-piece collection now sits in near-darkness and its future is uncertain.
By Sophia Castillo
NEW YORK CITY — Between 59th and 96th Street on the Upper East Side, Nelson Molina learned that New York is, at its core, a city of obscene and involuntary generosity. In a neighborhood where buildings have doormen in white gloves and dogs wear coats in winter, people throw things away unopened. Bed sheets still in their packaging, televisions, and complete kitchen sets. Once, Molina found a set of leather suitcases stacked on the sidewalk, as if someone had decided, all at once, to never travel again.