Residents of Dutch Kills are appualed by garbage piled high along the N and Q subway station entrance at 39th Avenue and around the fence surrounding the MTA training center and ventilation system located on a triangular block that runs along 31st Street, from 39th Avenue to Northern Boulevard. Residents in the Dutch Kills community are calling foul over the condition of a trash-strewn Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) training facility covered in discarded food, newspapers and other garbage that is spilling over the sidewalk and cluttering the southeast entrance to the 39th Avenue/Beebe Avenue N and Q subway station entrance in Long Island City.

Dutch Kills Civic Association Executive Director George Stamatiades last week said, the trash collects around a fence surrounding the MTA training center and ventilation system located on a triangular block that runs along 31st Street, from 39th Avenue to Northern Boulevard.

Stamatiades said area residents are sick and tired of the way MTA officials are ignoring the quality of life and appearance of the Dutch Kills community.

The trash problem has plagued the location for many years, but new development in the area demands that MTA officials clean up their act, Stamatiades said.

“This subway station is the gateway to the many new, major hotel chains featuring 1,000 rooms in the heart of the Dutch Kills community. What impression does this make on the hundreds of tourists that pass through this subway station on their way to visit our city,” he stated. “And here’s the big question—would the MTA allow this condition to exist at the Fifth Avenue/59th Street subway station in Manhattan?”

Dutch Kills President Gerald Walsh echoed the complaint, adding that the civic association has, for years, called on local politicians and MTA officials for help to clean the mess.

“It’s unsightly,” Walsh said. “The MTA does nothing to clean the trash and maintain the appearance of the subway entrance.”

Stamatiades said the civic group wants to make it clear that the city Department of Sanitation (DOS) does not hold responsibility to clean the trash on MTA property.

“This has nothing to do with DOS,” Stamatiades said. “It’s all about the MTA.”

MTA officials did not return calls for comment. –Liz Goff