New York City garbage collection team discovers Deluxe Reading Corp vintage toy car dashboard

Cars are a fundamental part of our economy. There are 300 million of them on the road in America, and around 14.5 million cars were sold last year, up 13 percent from 2011, according to CompexRides.com.

For many of us, cars are there for getting to work in the morning and back home in the evening. For others, cars are rented, merely used for vacation travel and impromptu road trips. No matter what you use them for, passenger vehicles are the largest mode of transportation nationwide.

But America’s love of cars doesn’t stop with real ones. Since the 1960s, the market for toy and model cars has exploded, starting with wood and tin models and evolving into cast iron, sheet steel and plastic versions. Children and adults alike are very into their toy cars, so I was pretty excited to find this vintage dashboard that, at one point in time, had been attached to a 1960s toy car.

Garbage disposal New York team finds vintage rotary phone in Chelsea apartment clean out

I found this vintage rotary dial phone from the 1960s a few weeks ago, just sitting on a shelf in the bedroom closet of a Chelsea apartment. The phone is dated 3/64 and is a model 500, making it extra heavy — at least a good three pounds, about 12 times the weight of a smartphone today.

DiMola Bros trash company encounters Brooklyn Heights brownstone history in Brooklyn interior demolition job

A few years back on a Brooklyn interior demolition job, I was lucky enough to work in an old brownstone church located at 102 Willow Street in Brooklyn Heights. I did the job several years ago but recently came across these photos, which brought back some memories.

Rubbish removalist finds vintage 1950s PET Tools drill-saw in Ridgewood basement junk removal job

In the Queens neighborhood of Ridgewood, not far from my garage, I found this vintage drill attachment when I was doing a basement junk removal job one weekday afternoon. It’s made of aluminum and was sitting right in its original box when I made the discovery.

Garbage removal NYC company finds Vatican coin on waste removal job

I found this Vatican coin a few years ago on a Manhattan waste removal job and said, “Wow, I got to have this!”  After my garbage removal NYC team and I found it, I kept it in my collection for a few years and gave it away recently, last year, to a very good friend of mine.  Let me tell you why.

DiMola clean up crew finds 1930s vintage vaporizer in Brooklyn full estate clean out

The DiMola clean up crew and I found in Brooklyn this 1930s vintage vaporizer in a full estate clean out last week. It was manufactured by a company called American Sundries and made in Brooklyn, N.Y.

200-year-old wine or liquor bottle found in Queens cleanout

Laden with imperfections and missing its cork, this wine or liquor bottle has seen better days than when I found it in a Queens cleanout not long ago.

Trash team finds Goldberger ventriloquism doll in Queens NYC house clean out

This ventriloquist doll was produced by Goldberger Doll MFG. Co., Inc., a doll manufacturing company based in Brooklyn that’s still around today. Eugene Goldberger founded the company in 1916 when he decided that teddy bears should be more regularly created and distributed across America, given Americans’ fondness for them and the joy they brought to people everywhere.

Plumber leaves trash crew 1950s Rheingold Beer in bathroom and kitchen interior demolition job

I don’t usually accept gifts on the job, but I won’t turn down a good beer (even if it is 50 years old).

Next to a cast-iron tub on an interior demolition job in Bayside, Queens, I found this beer can that must be at least 50 years old. You can see from looking at the top of the can that you actually need a can opener to get it open — there’s no pop-top like we have today.

Richmond Hill, Queens history comes alive in New York basement cleanout

I found this old bottle that used to contain poison, or denatured alcohol, and it was made by the same company that manufactured Devoe and Lead Zinc Paint.

The paint was considered to be the strongest house paint you could buy in 1966. It’s made of dry white lead and dry white zinc ground together in linseed oil. The inseed oil then reduces to a liquid that has the consistency and thinness of paint. A 1904 write-up in Connecticut newspaper The Day reveals that, during that year, Devoe and Lead Zinc Paint was the most durable paint known.