The city's Central Storehouse occupies 300,000 square feet inside the Metro Mall here in Middle Village. From a 1983 NY Times article:
The municipal depot in Queens, where the city keeps commonly used supplies, could accommodate more than 50 supermarkets, or eight football fields, or nearly half the Chrysler Building. To feed the poor, hospitalized and imprisoned, the General Services Department buys, stores and delivers everything from soup (429 gallons of canned chicken noodle in storage) to nuts (4,104 pounds of peanut butter).The city also stores its voting machines here — 5,157 of them as of late 2011.
In stock for breakfast are 745,560 eggs, 13,632 pounds of regular grind coffee and 146,090 individual servings of corn flakes. There are also 303,996 toothbrushes - listed as "Brush, Tooth."
Waiting for delivery to the bureaucrat who does not have everything are 1,844,916 No. 2 pencils, 74,010 boxes of photocopying paper, 5,594 bottles of red ink and 1,094,400 aspirin tablets. "While You Were Out" pads are out of stock, but 36,804 are on order.
For the heavier-duty jobs are 543 step ladders, 1,322 dustpans, 8 10-gallon garbage cans with covers, 84 gallons of green-olive latex paint, 470 fire extinguishers and 46 scythes.
