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Show 'General Store' In N.Y. Sells Pigs, Gold, Gas Masks Salvage Division of City Disposes of Weird Possessions NEW YORK, N. Y. How would you like some slightly used radioactive radio-active gold? Maybe you would be interested in a ferry boat for the missus, some pigs or a bright red fire engine for Junior. If so, there's a "general store" in New York City that will be glad to have you for a customer. The man to see about all this is Leo P. Flood, who operates one of the, wierdest "general stores" in the world. He is in charge of the salvage division in the. New York City department of purchases. Most everyone else in his department depart-ment buys things. He sells them. It's his job to dispose of municipal possessions waste material, worn-out worn-out or surplus equipment anything that'll still bring a buck. Flood's been selling more than $500,000 worth of stuff a year. This year the figure may reach $900,000. His wares come from various places police and fire departments, hospitals, hos-pitals, prisons, schools and almost every phase of city government. He does not handle material collected col-lected directly from the citizenry by the police and sanitation departmentslike depart-mentslike guns or illegal drugs or the refuse put out in garbage cans every morning by private residents. But he can and does find a market mar-ket for refuse which comes from city institutions. Sells Ashes and Cinders Last year, for example, Flood received: re-ceived: $7,100 for about 5,000 truck-loads truck-loads of ashes and cinders from firms which use the stuff to make building blocks; $5,000 for 3,500 tons of garbage and swill sold to pig farms; $12,000 for bones, entrails, fats, grease and scrap gristle left over from city-owned kitchens and bought by people who make fats for soap (one year this Included the mortal remains of a lion and bear which died at a city zoo). Don't grimace. All this saves the taxpayers money. Among the odd items that will go to the highest bidders this year are 500 grams of radioactive gold, 165 grams of just plain gold, 250 pigs from city-owned reform school farms, a $50,000 cannery, two iron lungs, two fire engines, one ferry boat, two wooden deck scows, several sev-eral steam-rollers, H dozen pairs of reading glasses, maybe a plane now used by the police, and a wide assortment as-sortment of stuff left over from the days of civilian defense. Gold Comes In Tubings The radioactive gold is in tubings which were used to encase radon, a radium gas used in the treatment of cancer. The other, unpolluted gold which could be used for dental den-tal fillings, is in new tubings which were intended for but never used in the cancer treatment. The civilian defense equipment remaining from those dark days when cities tried to prepare themselves them-selves for attack includes a wide assortment: Ten thousand gas masks, 107 pounds of ointment for burns, 900 air raid warden "arm bands, 1,750 flashlight batteries, 1 blackboard, 2 metal bombs and 34 wooden bombs once used for demonstrations, 351 blood bank bottles (you supply the blood), 3,000 stretchers, 13.000 metal helmets, 1,000 surgical dressings, 140 pairs of asbestos gloves, and the keys to 879 street lamps. |