Right down the street from my house is an industrial lot that over the years has housed a variety of business. It’s really nothing more than a chain link enclosed field of a gravel with a quonset hut dating back to the early days of the cold war. Truck related business have usually been found here with the current tenant being Butler Disposal Systems. Butler runs mostly a Mack fleet with plenty of what appear to be former DSNY style rear packers. I have no proof on this one but look at the Mack below on the right, it clearly has a plow frame. DSNY brings out the plows when NYC receives a blizzard which recently seems to be a yearly occurrence.
And what about this guy? Spokes up front. Massive overbuilt packer body in the rear. This thing just screams NYC. This style of trucks is NOT common nor popular in Upstate NY with conventional cab trucks being the preferred setup.
This front loader however is quite common.
The DSNY-like Heil 5000 has a pretty big hoist up top…they must have added it on after the fact. The spread of the ex-DSNY trucks is amazing. They are very commonly used by private carters on long island. For a while DSNY was replacing spent packers on chassis that were in good condition with Leach and chagnon bodies for their second coming but this seems to have stopped. The McNeilus XC has also been accepted as a pre-qualified rear load body for DSNY and sooner or later those should be popping up in used markets. Many private haulers prefer the McNeilus trucks. The Heil 5000 is a very good, low maintenance packer design but can struggle with bulk.