“Geo Friend-Lee”, who calls himself “the hardest working environmentalist on the planet”, hit Brooklyn Heights recently and posted a YouTube video documenting it. His Cleaner Curbs promises to “eliminate the litter on our streets, restore the beauty of our city and help protect the planet from human destruction.”
Sounds like the Guardian Angels of Cleanin’ Up to us. Well, they bill themselves as a “supplemental sanitation company,” and this, friends, is a commercial venture. But if he shows up in that outfit all the time, it’s totally worth the vig, no?
What inspired GFL to launch this program? He explains on the company site:
Geo Friend-Lee: This past year, my grandmother was diagnosed with lung cancer. I watched as the strongest and most selfless woman in the world battled pain and fatigue and continued to work for the city, pay taxes and be an active citizen of New York City. I began to study the problem of litter and pollution, and I realized that this was not just a community issue or even a citywide issue, but it was an issue with the way humans interacted with their environment all across the world. This inspired me to create Cleaner Curbs. I will no longer act blind to the huge amounts of litter in our communities. I believe that every resident of this great city and planet deserves better. They deserve to live in a place where the yards, sidewalks, and curbs are litter free, trash is taken out properly and more importantly, we treat our planet with the dignity and respect it deserves. This is why I have dedicated my life to protecting the environment for this and future generations by raising the awareness of the small steps we must take in order to make a giant leap toward a cleaner and more environmentally friendly world.
Who is the man of mystery in the video? A simple trademark search reveals that Geo Friend-Lee and Cleaner Curbs were registered by Jerome Ellison. We wondered if that was the same Mr. Ellison from P.S. 8. The response from the company, via e-mail, “Jerome is a good friend of ours and when we told him about the business he gave us the idea for the names and helped with the design for the logo and mask. Because of this, we allowed him to trademark the names and we consider him a partner.”
As for who, exactly, is the fastidious man behind the mask in the Brooklyn Heights video, the company says, “There will be more videos to come and other people will be wearing the mask. But we hope that the intrigue and questions around who is wearing the mask will create buzz for the company “cleaner curbs”.
Between Geo Friend-Lee and Captain Cleanup, Brooklyn Heights is becoming starting to fill up with Superheroes. Better get our pal/superhero expert Rabbi Simcha on the phone immediately!
