I am stunned by how dirty Devon Avenue is. How can the alderman and the merchants insist that Devon represents international shopping at its best when the street is so filthy? Several restaurants and stores on Devon have been temporarily closed in recent months because they failed to pass City inspections. Violations included everything from roach and rodent infestations to filthy food prep and storage areas.
Many of the pictures I took over the past three days are nauseating. Half-eaten food tossed in street excavations. Food debris left on newspaper boxes and safety cones, not to mention windowsills and plant boxes. Coffee and yogurt cups as well as beverage bottles tossed everywhere. The clincher was a filthy diaper left on pipes outside a sweet shop.
Last week I was walking on Devon when a merchant appeared at her door with a broom and a pile of trash from inside. She was about to sweep it into the street excavations. I see merchants sweep debris from their stores onto the sidewalks on Devon every week. A few days after our streets were swept a couple of weeks ago, the cleaning crew from Republic Bank showed up with leaf blowers and cleaned the parking lot and ATM by blowing the trash into the streets.
This behavior needs to stop. Those of us who live here–especially those of us who live immediately south and north of Devon–deserve better.
Here’s just a sample of what I found:

A new low in dirtiness. A loaded diaper is left atop pipes outside a sweet shop, Washtenaw north of Devon.

The new street furniture will encourage the dumping of even more garbage. The plant pots on Devon west of California are already filled with garbage.

These black plastic trays hold merchandise when it’s delivered to stores. Merchandise is removed and the trays are dumped into the street scape excavations. You can see this in almost every street excavation on Devon.

Another pig who decided to use a safety cone rather than a trashcan This was a couple of blocks from the first one.