HOLE-D UP
Boerum Hill block littered with potholes
BY KEVIN DUGGAN
Pacific Street in Boerum Hill
has devolved into a rutty mess, according
to locals, who say the city
is more concerned with inviting developers
to their block than taking
basic care of the roads.
“Our taxes are too high for our
streets to be looking like this —
that’s what you literally pay for,”
said Kenda Jackson. “You have a
pretty mall and all of that stuff but
the things that really matter, that’s
the problem.”
The stretch of the one-way street
between Third and Fourth avenues
has become scattered with unsightly
Drivers-ed vehicle goes off-road in Prospect Heights
COURIER L 6 IFE, JAN. 31-FEB. 6,2020
craters, including one abyssal
hole that plunged knee-deep
beneath the pavement.
Making matters worse, the street
is burdened by numerous construction
sites that jut into Pacific Street
and narrow the road, such as a sidewalk
shed erected in 2015 projecting
from a rising 12-story co-op at
the corner of Fourth Avenue, and
a walled-off container outside the
Brooklyn High School of the Arts.
As a result, the city is incapable
of preforming necessary work,
such as milling, that’s necessary
to fully repave the road, but that
shouldn’t stop officials from performing
a quick and dirty patch job
while waiting for the construction
to wrap, according to a local civic
leader.
“They could close the street and
put asphalt into the potholes, they
can do that any time,” said the head
of the Boerum Hill Association
Howard Kolins.
The Department of Transportation
did not provide comment.
The constant construction and
nearby high school lead to large
work vehicles and school busses frequenting
the narrow street, making
a terrible racket as they rumble
SORRY MS. JACKSON: Boerum Hill resident Kenda Jackson is fed up with the street’s potholes.
Photo by Kevin Duggan
across the pitted asphalt.
And while the city won’t lift a
finger to repair the potholes, it has
no problem with fining residents
for failing to clean out the garbage
that collects in them, according to
one senior resident of the block.
“I have to clean out the pothole
area, because it doesn’t drain,” said
Patricia Howard, Jackson’s mother.
“It looks nasty and bad.”
And if there’s one silver lining
for Jackson, it’s the fact that she’s
got a all-terrain vehicle to able to
handle her rock road.
“I have a Jeep, so I’m ok, but it’s
still pretty rocky to go over those,
it’s like off-roading,” she said. “Just
fill them up or put in some gravel or
something.”
Gaze into the abyss of this crevice outside
the development of 561 Pacifi c St.
Photo by Kevin Duggan
BY BEN VERDE
That’s not on the test!
Some numbskull behind
the wheel of a drivers-ed training
vehicle circumvented a
Prospect Heights traffi c jam
by maneuvering nearly half a
block down a narrow sidewalk
Thursday morning, according
to a dumbfounded onlooker.
“It didn’t want to wait for
the traffi c jam, so it just slowly
made its way down the sidewalk
without a care in the
world,” said Steve Flack, a
Prospect Heights resident who
witnessed the outlandish detour.
The teaching sedan —
which ironically sported the
moniker “Drive Rite” emblazoned
on its sides — was
stuck behind a row of vehicles
hemmed in by a double-parked
car on Sterling Place between
Underhill and Washington avenues
at around 10 am, when
the driver jumped the curb
and brazenly rolled down the
sidewalk, before merging with
traffi c about halfway down the
block, according to Flack.
“I was awestruck,” Flack
said.
According to its website, the
Drive Rite Academy offers an
“innovative approach to driving,”
which instructs students
in “a wide range of knowledge
and skills,” although it’s unclear
whether illicit detours
are included in the curriculum.
And since witnessing the
“Drive Rite Academy” school
of driving fi rst hand, Flack
feels he has a better understanding
of all these crazy New
York drivers.
“It goes to show that there’s
no liability for any car that
breaks the rules,” he said.
A woman who picked up
the phone at Drive Rite said
she was not authorized to comment,
but that she would pass
Brooklyn Paper’s request for
comment to her manager. More like drive-wrong! Photo by Steve Flack