That seems like a more reasonable thing to do, though I think as a parent, I'd have probably swept the area up a bit...
In the summer in the inner city of Brooklyn, you would be sweeping all day, everyday. NYC was a cesspool in the 70s. Newpapers blowing around, overfilled trash receptacles, insufficient street cleaning, and the public's general lack of respect for their fellow denizens. Homicides were at 1890 in 1989 in NYC compared to <400 nowadays and the population was a lot smaller then.