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Janae Pierre: Will Mayor Adams be remembered as leader of the city's trash revolution? It's a bird. It's a plane. No, it's a bird. New York City's annual bird count is underway. From WNYC, this is NYC Now. I'm Janae Pierre. New York City Comptroller Brad Lander says an audit of the city's dysfunctional school bus system finds poor performance by companies and weak oversight from officials.

New York City Comptroller Brad Lander: Despite investment and successive promises to improve, services remain poor. Meanwhile, DOE has failed to take adequate corrective action in the face of this appalling performance.

Janae Pierre: The audit says the city doesn't hold companies accountable for problems. It says the Education Department failed to collect $43 million in penalties for drivers' failure to log onto GPS as required, and upgrades to technology to improve routes still hasn't been delivered. Lander says the incoming Mamdani administration should appoint a school bus czar to implement major reform. The Education Department says it's committed to improving service. New York City Mayor Eric Adams says New Yorkers shouldn't merely remember him as the first sitting mayor in the modern era to ever be federally indicted.

New York City Mayor Eric Adams: Don't stay on one first. Talk about the first mayor being indicted, but damn it, don't miss the other first that this mayor has been able to accomplish.

Speaker 3: That's right.

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New York City Mayor Eric Adams: Have it all come together?

Janae Pierre: Adams delivered a farewell address Tuesday at City Hall. He touted his policy achievements, including lowering crime, providing temporary shelter for tens of thousands of migrants, passing an ambitious rezoning for new housing that he's dubbed the City of Yes, and putting speed limits on e-bikes. His corruption indictment, however, led to the departure of four deputy mayors and left him with low approval ratings. Trump administration officials eventually ordered the charges to be dropped. The mayor did not take any questions during the press conference.

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Janae Pierre: Now, let's talk more about Adams's legacy. If you ask my colleague Liam Quigley, it's trash. No, literally. Adams started to get mountains of trash bags off the sidewalks and into containers. Liam has been looking into what the Sanitation Department accomplished under Mayor Adams. He says it all started when the city set a requirement for owners of small family homes to put all their trash in bins for curbside collection. Then the same requirement was made for apartment buildings with one to nine units. Liam says, now, we're beginning to see the culmination of the mayor's trash revolution with Empire Bins.

Liam Quigley: Everyone's going to notice. If you've ever been to Europe, you've seen these big on-street containers that sit at the curb off the sidewalk. We're already starting to get those in parts of Upper Manhattan, Morningside Heights, Hamilton Heights. Now they're coming to down Brooklyn, Fort Greene, Clinton Hill.

Janae Pierre: Though there's still plenty of trash bag mountains across the city, Liam says the Empire Bins will help make them disappear, especially in congested areas in Manhattan.

Liam Quigley: The plan is that by 2032, every building with 30 or more units is going to be using Empire Bins.

Janae Pierre: Depending on your philosophy about public space, these Empire Bins could become an issue for drivers looking for a parking spot. Council Member Sandy Nurse is on the sanitation committee, and she says--

Council Member Sandy Nurse: If we want to be able to consume and generate trash at the levels that we are generating, there are going to be trade-offs.

Janae Pierre: Liam expects some New Yorkers to push back over the use of the public space, but now the plan moves to a Mamdani administration, and Liam says--

Liam Quigley: He said he supports the Empire Bins as one of the few things where he aligns with Adams.

Janae Pierre: With that, the trash revolution continues. That's WNYC's Liam Quigley.

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Janae Pierre: New York City's bird count is officially underway. More on that after the break.

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Janae Pierre: There's a holiday tradition in New York City that dates back to the year 1900. No, it doesn't involve the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree, ice skating, or caroling. It's the Audubon Christmas Bird Count, where bird lovers, scientists, and just about anyone who's curious can join to help track bird populations in and around the area for the next few weeks.

Jessica Wilson: The Christmas bird count is one of my favorite holiday traditions. It's charming, and old-fashioned, and forward-looking, and so important for science.

Janae Pierre: That's Jessica Wilson, executive director of the New York City Bird Alliance, which runs the count. She says, before the count started over a century ago, people would go on Christmas hunts to kill birds. Jessica says some people even made those dead birds fashion items.

Jessica Wilson: People used their feathers on fancy ladies' hats. Ornithologists and naturalists were noticing the bird populations were in decline, and there were a bunch of birds that were really on the brink of extinction.

Janae Pierre: She says an ornithologist by the name of Frank Chapman offered an alternative to the Christmas hunt. He proposed that instead of killing birds, people should count them.

Jessica Wilson: That started in Central Park and a few other locations around the country. Today, more than 80,000 people across the country count birds these last few weeks of December.

Janae Pierre: Yes, I know what you're thinking. Who's out counting birds in the cold? Jessica says there are a surprising number of birds in New York City, even in the winter.

Jessica Wilson: I should say that New York City is a biodiversity hotspot. There are more than 300 different kinds of birds that come through New York every year.

Janae Pierre: She says, on an average winter day in New York, you could see more than 100 birds.

Jessica Wilson: Like chickadees and titmice, juncos, and woodpeckers, to really extraordinary birds like owls and, if you're lucky, a bald eagle.

Janae Pierre: I can't front, y'all. It would be pretty cool to see a bald eagle. Jessica says a typical bird count is fun, friendly, welcoming, and accessible. Thinking about joining the count? Here's what to expect. Jessica says volunteers are paired up with an official compiler, someone who organizes the count. Then, groups go out to their local park or green space to count birds over a period of a few hours. Next, the group records the number of birds they see in a particular location.

Jessica Wilson: That data is then compiled across the whole city. It's fed up to the National Audubon Society, which analyzes all the data from across the country to look for changes in bird populations and trends in birds.

Janae Pierre: That's Jessica Wilson, executive director of New York City Bird Alliance.

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Janae Pierre: Are you the type of person that likes to try new foods? I sure am. If you're headed to your local farmers' market, consider trying an unfamiliar fruit. Amelia Tarpey is a program and publicity manager for Grow NYC Green Markets. She's going to tell us all about quince, spelled Q-U-I-N-C-E, quince.

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Amelia Tarpey: I feel like quince at one time was a highly popular fruit in the Americas and elsewhere around the world, but in the Americas, it's fallen out of favor in recent decades, and a lot of people don't know what quince are. They're a beautiful yellow, golden fruit. They look like a cross between a pear and an apple, but it has this very hard flesh. It has this soft peach-like fuzz on the outside of it, and they are super aromatic. You often smell them before you see them. They have this pineappley, tropical guava, rose floral scent to them. However, if you try to bite into one, you will not enjoy that experience. They're extremely hard, and the flesh is bitter and astringent before you cook it.

When you do cook it, the flesh turns from this pale, whitish color to this deep, gorgeous pink color. One thing that's really cool about quince is it has a really high level of pectin in it, so it's really good for making jam. It's the fruit that's used to make membrillo. Membrillo is a popular fruit paste often used in Spanish cuisine or across Latin America. To make membrillo, you just wash, peel, and core, and then chop up that quince and simmer it in water until it's nice and soft. Then you would drain that out and puree it.

Then you would combine it with a little bit of lemon juice and an equal amount of sugar as you have paste, and reduce it over medium heat, stirring frequently as you go, just to make sure it doesn't burn. Then you pour that into a parchment-lined dish and chill in the fridge overnight. It's really delicious paired with a hard cheese like a Manchego or a really sharp cheddar. It's a nice thing to have on the cheese board as you go into the holidays, or if you want to make something, gifting some membrillo is really nice.

Janae Pierre: Amelia Tarpey is a program and publicity manager for Grow NYC Green Markets. She says, right now, green markets across the city are selling quince at roughly $4 a pound. Try it out and let me know your thoughts. Send us an email at nycnownyc.org. Thanks for listening to NYC Now from WNYC. I'm Janae Pierre. We'll be back tomorrow.

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