Photos &Steve Fisher 15 May 2011 07:15 am
Smokes
- Mayor Bloomberg has had an all-out war going on cigarette smokers. They’re no longer able to smoke within restaurants, bars, or public parks; they also can’t congregate outside of buildings anymore. The price of a pack of cigarettes in NY is about $11 in a retail drug store like CVS, I can’t imagine smoking a pack a day without being rich. (My father used to smoke three packs a day! I’m not sure he’d be able to afford the bad habit today.)
Given the intolerance for smokers in this city and the high price of maintaining the habit, it’s a surprise that everyone hasn’t already quit smoking. But all we have to do is look downward, and we can see that there is still an abundant number of people smoking. You can’t move two feet without stepping on or over some worn out butts. (It was in Canada that I saw homeless people gathering the butts to refashion their own cigarettes from the left-over tobacco in the cigarettes they found. That’s something I’d only seen in films from the Depression era US.)
People treat the outdoors as if it’s their own personal ashtray. That was always the worst of the habit that I saw. Butts fly out car windows, get smashed on the sidewalks and curbs, onto stairwells and subway tracks. So it was an easy photo target for me to shoot the detritus of the NY smokers. Here’s the result of some casual photos shot during the week while walking home.
1Flora, fauna, butts and coffee cup caps.
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
Butts seem to enjoy nestling in the pavement guides.
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
Heading down the subway steps.
16
Farther downstairs in the subway.
17
On the subway tracks.
18
Outside lobby doors . . .
19
. . . or store doors
20
Floating in the muddy water in the curb.
21
Or looking up to a tree stained sky.
on 15 May 2011 at 7:52 am 1.Steven Hartley said …
Deeesgusting!
on 15 May 2011 at 9:44 am 2.Steisha Pintado said …
This problem is everywhere. Cigarette butts pollute my college campus here in North Carolina. There is supposed to be a rule of not smoking within 25 feet of a campus building, but it is ignored on a daily basis. I’ve watched friends flick their cigarette butts onto the sidewalk when they were standing next to an ashtray.
It is “deeesgusting.”
on 15 May 2011 at 11:13 am 3.Mark Mayerson said …
In Toronto, you can still smoke outside buildings. I’m amazed when I see people huddled outside in January. That’s proves to me how addictive tobacco is, as most people in Toronto spend as little time outdoors as possible in the depth of winter unless they’re skiing.
A complete ban won’t work; prohibition proved that. However, making tobacco more expensive and restricting where you can smoke doesn’t seem to be working either. I thought that 40 years after the link between tobacco and cancer was established that the habit would fade away. I now think that smoking will never disappear.
on 15 May 2011 at 11:32 am 4.Robert Dress said …
I was shocked when I found out my neighbor flicked a cigarette butt onto my parked motorcycle in front of his building where he would sit on his stoop and smoke. It burned a hole right through the cover and onto my leather seat leaving a nice little burn mark. Then I found that there where at least 3 or 4 more small round holes in my cover!!!! I never actually saw him do it, but I did witness him flick a butt onto the hood of a parked car while it was still lit! (COME ON MAN!!!)
The moral of the story is I no longer have to worry about parking my bike in front of this guys stoop because he no longer sits out there. He currently has throat cancer and undergoing chemo and no longer sits out there.
on 15 May 2011 at 11:59 am 5.Joel Brinkerhoff said …
Can’t they make them bio-degradable? Then you could pollute and still be green!
on 15 May 2011 at 1:34 pm 6.Sarah said …
It’s the worst walking behind a smoker in NYC and all the smoke is getting blown backwards into your face. It happens to me every day on my walk to work. I hope smoking becomes illegal.
I love this blog by the way! I’m discovering so many great animators.
on 15 May 2011 at 2:06 pm 7.Paul Spector said …
Why not just have designated smoking stations? I see Port-a-Potties everywhere. I guess people are afraid to bare their ass but not to leave their butt behind.
on 15 May 2011 at 7:43 pm 8.Matthew Koh said …
Now you know how Max J. Horowitz feels.
on 15 May 2011 at 11:34 pm 9.Jonah Sidhom said …
I did an art project about cigarette butt litter a few semesters ago in college. I used littered butts around my campus as materials. It was sad how much there was available. I ended up collecting way too much and just threw a bunch away.
Speaking from experience, I can say that art students and law students are the heaviest smokers.
on 16 May 2011 at 9:33 am 10.Neil Hunter said …
Albert Einstein used to pick up cigarette butts and smoke the tobacco in his pipe. True story. Look it up.