Alan Gofinski

He works on the Bronx River today.

It was really just an elongated landfill.

And over the centuries, more and more animals disappeared from the river, including the few remaining beavers.

And by the 1970s... Parents told their kids, don't go down there.

It's not safe.

Because for decades, companies all along the river used it as a convenient dump for their waste.

And people had just given up on the Bronx River.

They thought it was just too polluted to care about.

In many places, you couldn't see the water because of how thick the trash was.

Until one day, someone said, You know what?

This river does not need to look like this.

This river could be beautiful.

This river could be full of life.

Inspired in part by the first Earth Day in 1970, a couple of folks from the neighborhood, like a lady named Ruth and a guy named Fred, they put on gloves and boots and began picking up the trash.

Bag by bag, day by day.

And at first, people kind of laughed.

They thought, what good is a couple of bags of trash going to do?

This whole river's polluted.

But then some kids joined in.

Let's do this!