My Hidden Manhattan mysteries feature Anna Winthrop, a New York Sanitation supervisor, so as you can imagine, I’m very interested in trash. So is Justin Gignac, an artist, entrepreneur, and freelance art director living in New York. Among his various endeavors, he sells garbage. Really! As he puts it, 100% authentic New York City Garbage. He selects the trash himself, then arranges it in Lucite cubes that are signed, numbered, and dated. To date, he’s sold over 1,200 of these cubes to people in more than 25 countries.
I caught up with Justin recently, and he was kind enough to answer some of my questions.
EM: Have you noticed that any particular group of people buy more than others — tourists? Native New Yorkers? Young people? Older people?
JG: Since almost all of my sales have been online it’s hard to know much beyond where they live. Initially most of my sales were local, but once the word spread online international sales have taken off. If I had to guess I would say it’s pretty evenly split between US and international. And of the US about 1/3 are in the New York area.
EM: Are any of your pieces more popular than others? How have you done with the limited edition pieces?
JG: The original garbage cubes are definitely the best seller. Limited editions have done well though, since people have such a connection to the events. Some of my editions have included the World Series, the Republican National Convention at MSG, New Year’s Eve in Times Square, the last Opening Day at Shea and the Last Game at Yankee Stadium.
EM: Will you be adding sculptures from additional places in New York? Any other plans for similar projects in the future?
JG: I’ve recently done editions from Opening Day at the new Yankee Stadium and CitiField. I’ve also been considering doing limited editions from each borough. I might put it up to a vote on the website to see which to do first.
EM: Have you thought about trying to get your work into galleries or museums? Do you think this will happen?
JG: I’d love to get my garbage cubes into a gallery. A few cubes have been part of group shows but I have yet to do a solo show. That’s one of my goals for this year. The thing I’ve found most compelling about my cubes is watching people interact with them. When people have had the opportunity to choose from a few they spend so much time examining each cube, comparing, and they always end up having a deeply personal connection to at least one. I think people are drawn to the cube that is the best reflection of themselves.
I’m in discussions with a couple galleries right now so I’m hopeful it will happen.
EM: What message are you trying to send, if any, about garbage with your pieces?
JG: Well, it all started initially as an answer to a packaging problem. One day at my summer internship we were having a discussion about the importance of package design. One of my coworkers claimed package design wasn’t important and I thought that was ridiculous. I figured the only way to prove them wrong would be to package something that absolutely nobody would ever want to buy. If I could convince someone to buy it, I’d know my package design was successful. So I stared down into Times Square for a few minutes and it hit me…garbage!
There’s also various commentary about consumerism, consumption and how we place value on things. Choose whatever one you like.
You can get your own piece of New York City trash at Reed Space at 151 Orchard Street (between Rivington and Stanton) on New York City’s Lower East Side, or you can order from Justin’s website. Tell him Evan sent you.
Of Cats and Cozies
Evan Marshall at the New York Public Library
On Tuesday evening, November 17, I participated in a panel at the New York Public Library of mystery writers who have included cats in their novels. My fellow participants were Jane Cleland, Cynthia Baxter, Joani Ascher, with Daryl Wood Gerber moderating. Interesting questions and a lively audience brought out some basic truths about mystery readers and why they like cats in their stories. First, cats are by nature “cozy,” so a cat by its very nature enhances the reading experience. Second, a cat–or any pet, for that matter–serves to humanize the sleuth. Perhaps most interesting of all was the variety of ways in which cat cozy writers present the cats in their books. They run the gamut from the cats in Lilian Jackson Braun’s novels, which can talk on the phone, to the cat in, say, my own Jane Stuart and Winky mysteries, who is…just a cat!
I was so impressed with the power and popularity of cats in amateur-sleuth mysteries that I have decided to add a cat to my current Hidden Manhattan mystery series. If you’ve read any of the books in this new series and have any ideas to share, let me know!
Manhattan Underground
Hidden under Doyers Street in New York City’s Chinatown are tunnels where warring Chinese gangs once battled. To solve a murder, amateur sleuth and NYC sanitation department supervisor Anna Winthrop joins some urban explorers and breaks into these tunnels. What she finds there is more than just adventure.
Evil Justice by Evan Marshall
A Hidden Manhattan Mystery
Available at online booksellers
ISBN: 978-0-7278-6709-4
Secret Worlds
If you’re like me, you wonder what goes on beneath the surface of things. Take New York City, for example. On the outside it’s bright and bustling, yet sometimes we hear dark stories about what we don’t see. Stories of hundreds of people who live in the “Catacombs”—the abandoned subway stations and tunnels beneath Grand Central Station. Or of an odd group of people called urban explorers, who find adventure by breaking into forbidden places like storm drains and rooftops.
In my new book, EVIL JUSTICE, sanitation garage supervisor Anna Winthrop infiltrates such a group in her efforts to track down a ruthless killer. Her first adventure is exploring a tunnel that runs under Chinatown.
There really is such a tunnel. Now it’s called the Wing Fat Shopping Arcade and is a winding, fluorescent-list passageway with little shops on each side. But over a hundred years ago it was the central tunnel in a whole network of tunnels used by Tongs—Chinese gangs—to move secretly from one point to another. So violent were the battles among these gangs that Doyers Street, where the main tunnel begins, became known as the Bloody Angle.
Beneath bustling Grand Central Terminal lies a vast network of abandoned subway tunnels where hundreds of people make their home.
I’m constantly on the lookout for New York City’s secret places as I create my Hidden Manhattan mysteries. In my previous book, DEATH IS DISPOSABLE, I explore the invisible worlds of the homeless, from the tunnels under midtown to vast tent cities under bridge pilings, and also the lives of graffiti writers whose work becomes famous while they themselves remain invisible.
As I mentioned above, Anna Winthrop, my series’ amateur sleuth, works for the New York City Sanitation Department. That, to me, is an invisible world unto itself. Every day New York’s Strongest make tons of trash go away . . . and yet most of time we take no notice of them. My research into the SDNY opened up a fascinating area of research for me, as I explored sanitation garages and learned about the people who work in them.
I love reading books that open new worlds to me. That’s what I’m doing in my Hidden Manhattan mysteries—showing you the other half of New York City, the half we never see, a dark and often dangerous place. I hope you enjoy reading these books as much as I am enjoying writing them.
Thanks so much for visiting.
