(peaceful music)
- No goodies, okay.
There we go. (laughs)
This is a good book.
I usually look inside.
Sometimes you move these out,
you find money inside.
Speakers, shoe oil.
Can you imagine that?
It's brand new, yeah.
Full to the top.
That's going to the collection.
That's going with my other stuff.
(car horn blares)
Well, today is 4/28,
which'll be my last working day,
New York City Department of Sanitation.
This is the last time I'm
gonna be on this truck.
Okay, so this is it.
- [Interviewer] Did Nelson
make the job more fun for you?
- You know what?
Every day, off the job, on the job,
whether he was on the
route, in the garage,
it was always fun.
It hasn't been the same since he left.
- [Interviewer] Well, you
didn't lose him entirely.
It seems like he's here.
- [Sanitation Worker]
No, he's always here.
He's part of the phase two.
Absolutely.
(gentle jazz music)
- Hear that noise?
(garbage clinks)
Let's see what it is.
(truck engine rumbles)
Good pick up today.
My name is Nelson Molina,
and I was sanitation worker for 34 years.
I was hired in 1981,
and I retired in 2'15,
but I come to the garage three days a week
to take care of this
massive collection of things
that me and my coworkers
found throughout the years.
- Look at my man.
Way back, we go back way back, 30 years.
- There he is, he's the man.
What's up, buddy?
Whoo, whee, coworkers.
All right, so this is Cigarettes.
Every morning, we take him out for a drag.
He's our mascot.
We have him here like 19 years.
I used to say, "Stay," and
he would just stay there.
"Roll over."
And he would roll over.
He just sits here and
he guards the garage.
And so, that's Cigarettes.
It's really not a museum yet.
We can't call it a museum,
because it's an inactive garage,
so it's not open to the public.
So, we just call it
Treasures in the Trash.
It's about 45,000 pieces here.
Just picked up outta the garbage.
I brought it in 'cause I
didn't want to throw it out
or have it go to a landfill
or incinerator or something,
so I just picked it up
and put it on the side.
I was told never to throw
anything out if it can be used
and giving it another life.
(peaceful music)
When I was a kid,
I would go out and pick
things out of the garbage
that people were throwing
out: old toys, broken toys.
And I would just take everything,
'cause we didn't get much for Christmas.
So, I would pick all these toys up
and I would bring 'em home
and I would try to fix
them and everything.
So I was like Santa Claus
to my brothers and sisters.
We used to get these in
McDonald's for the kids.
That's the box, and I got 'em all in here.
- [Interviewer] All Inspector Gadget?
- Yeah, this is all the separate pieces.
You put 'em all together,
so you put one arm, you put a leg in.
First subculture would be the toys,
'cause I have so many of it.
So, I took out a table,
I set the table up and I
put all these toys on it.
And then, I just went to table two.
Maybe some records, table
three, some cameras,
'cause I had boxes full
of all these things.
This here's from 1911,
it's supposed to be some kind
of a postcard projection.
Each one of these Furbys
are all different.
Got all the beepers in here.
This is a phone.
The arm comes up.
So, just a souvenir
piece from Third Avenue.
It's a signed book by
Lena Horne, and it says,
"Most sincere, Lena
Horne, November, 1965."
And I found this at 117th
Street and Park Avenue
with a bunch of other books.
Then, you got all your games,
yeah, your Sony PlayStation
One, Nintendo 64,
you got your Wii, you got your Game Cube.
It's all here.
This bear's worth $450.
Here's a letter from the White House.
I mean, I look at this, if
they can throw that out,
they can throw this out,
they can turn anything out.
Loveda?
Loveda?
- [Loveda] Yeah, you can hear that?
- Yeah, 10 minutes and we out.
So, where were we?
- I had the fortunate pleasure
of seeing him in action.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
He never ceased to amaze me,
how he had the eye,
that uncanny eye to find these treasures.
I'm working, you know?
I'm throwing it back,
he said, "Oh, hold up.
"There's something in here."
- Okay.
- Oh, look at you.
I see your Spidey-Senses
were working today.
- Oh, yeah, I'm going
to put it on the table
and check it out.
- Big catch today, hey.
- It's called the "Vampires
Hunters Handbook".
This is definitely going
into the collection.
And that's the procedure, going out,
picking it up, cleaning it,
and placing it in into the
museum where it's gotta go.
(peaceful piano music)
This is where it all started, in here,
where I started putting stuff up.
I started putting the shelves up.
I started putting stuff on the shelf.
One guy moved out, he said,
"Nelson, I don't fit
in here, in this room."
Then I started putting more shelves out,
and then the other guy left.
And then, I ended up
having the room by myself,
so I just filled it all up
with all this stuff here.
Then I went outside the room.
I went in right into
the men's locker room.
It just kept getting bigger,
where I had to move into the garage.
Lombardy, what's up?
Bravado, what's up? (laughs)
This is my son, Nelson.
What's up?
- What's up, Dad?
- Everything good, good day?
- He started in 1981.
I was born in 1982,
so I've been around this
garage my whole life.
He was the only worker in the family,
and he had six kids,
three boys, three girls,
so he provided for the family.
You know, I said, you know what?
When I get older, that job right there,
it's provided for me my whole life,
and I wanted to provide for my family.
- This is one of the
greatest jobs in the world.
I'm proof of it.
It's one of the greatest jobs.
I've raised six kids, all doing it.
- [Interviewer] What do you think about
all the recent success he's
seen with this collection?
- I think it's well deserved.
I think it's something that, I feel like,
the people in this neighborhood
should be able to see this.
It's a long time coming for him.
I know, it's like his child.
I don't think he ever
wanted it to be what it was.
It just became that.
(gentle jazz music)
- I would have never thought
of what it turned into.
I just thought,
let me just pick it out and
I can just hang things up.
Nobody comes in here, nobody knows this,
this is here, exists.
One day, it was just people calling,
and you got the newspaper, you got TV,
you got all kinds of
people wanting to do films
and everything, and it
just started growing.
I didn't want to be interviewed,
because I've never been
interviewed for anything.
And what I want to see
happen to this collection
is put into a museum where the
people can come and see it.
People go to a museum,
they see these artifacts,
and I think people ought to see a museum
of what a sanitation worker
picks out of the garbage
that New Yorkers throw
out every single day.
- [Man] How are you?
- Good, good, good.
Find anything for me?
- Not today, unfortunately,
but next time I will.
- [Nelson] Before you throw
something out, think about it.
Everything can have a home.
(film reel clicks)
(gentle jazz music)
