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BROOKLYN WEEKLY, NOV. 3, 2019
GARBAGE DUMP
City trash collectors create trash-can walls along Ninth Street bike lane
BY BEN VERDE
Talk about trashy.
A Park Slope lawyer says he witnessed
workers from the Department
of Sanitation creating barricades out
of garbage cans along the Ninth Street
bike lane to protest cyclists.
Sloper Adam White noticed several
walls of trash cans blocking the protected
bike lane on his ride Saturday
morning ride.
The cyclist at fi rst chalked the hazards
up to simple negligence — until he
spotted municipal trash haulers deliberately
placing the cans in the lane. When
he confronted them, White says one of the
waste collectors went on a rant about cyclists,
who he accused of riding recklessly
and wreaking havoc on city streets.
“He was going ‘you bicyclists this’
and you ‘bicyclists that,’” White said.
“That’s when I realized this was an intentional
act.”
White tried reasoning with the saboteurs,
saying he respected them and
their work, but the garbage men refused
to clean up their mess.
“I literally said ‘I love you guys, why
are you doing this?’ I guess they thought
I was being sarcastic,” he said.
White, an attorney who represents
crash victims, said he knows a thing
or two about the danger cyclists face
on the road, but that he’s never seen a
professional driver intentionally create
hazards for bikers.
“When you have professional drivers
out there with that mindset it’s kind
of scary,” White said. “We can’t tolerate
that sort of act of deliberate hostility.”
DSNY drivers have killed two pedestrians
in the past year, including
Alberto Leal, a Crown Heights resident
who was killed in October of last year
when a sanitation driver turned the
wrong way onto a one way street. Another
pedestrian was killed by a DSNY
salt truck driver in January .
The Sanitation Department has a
much better driving record than the
private carting industry, where workers
are pushed to drive recklessly to increase
profi ts and were involved in 67
crashes between March 2016 and April
2018, killing fi ve people, according to a
report by the Transform Don’t Trash
NYC labor coalition . Cyclists have
killed fi ve pedestrians since 2014 .
The Ninth Street bike lane was
added in 2018, as part of traffi c calming
changes made after a driver killed two
children and sent three adults – including
a pregnant woman – to the hospital.
The Sanitation Department says it is
investigating the incident and may take
disciplinary action.
Attorney Adam White says the pictured worker went on a rant
about scoffl aw cyclists. Photo by Adam White
Grand Prospect Hall-of-fame
Michael and Alice Halkias, and Pete Alfonso star in the spoof ad.
Photo by Michael Glozman
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BY BEN VERDE
He’ll make all your
dreams come true — except
if you dream of the
playoffs!
New York Mets all-star
Pete Alonso stopped by
Grand Prospect Hall to
freshen up the Park Slope
banquet hall’s iconic television
ad during a recent
episode of Jimmy Kimmel
Live, which spent the
week fi lming at the Brooklyn
Academy of Music.
“When it comes to special
events and weddings,
the Grand Prospect Hall
is a big homerun,” said
Alonso.
The 2019 National
League Rookie of the Year
stands alongside the grand
hall’s owners — Michael
and Alice Halkias — as
they tour the glitzy event
space.
The original Grand
Prospect Hall advertisement
has become a local
legend since it fi rst aired
in 2009 thanks to its small
budget and big promises —
pledging to make “all your
dreams come true.”
The trash collectors built a wall of garbage cans to protest bikers. Photo by Adam White