On any given day, if you should happen to find yourself near the intersection of Broadway and East Nagel in the Patch neighborhood, you’re likely to see a steady stream of down-on-their-luck types hauling scrap metal toward an out-of-the-way recycling facility squeezed between the end of the block and the banks of the Mississippi River.
They’re carting pipes and bicycle parts and ladders, pieces of air conditioners and components of engines. They’re mostly men, though a few women are among their ranks. They’re all sweaty and haggard and some are to varying degrees out of their minds on either booze or hard drugs. They’re carrying the scrap in backpacks, shopping carts, and even the occasional stroller.
A homeless man carting a bunch of junk is a common sight to the point of being a cliche, an easy shorthand for urban poverty. But all that scrap being lugged to SA has to come from somewhere. In the Patch, the volume of scrap being sold at SA Recycling’s River Terminal facility on East Nagel is leading some locals to conclude that the neighborhood is slowly being stripped for parts. They’re having their air conditioners stolen and copper wire ripped out of their homes…