TURN YOUR CONCERN a decade and counting
COURIER L 6 IFE, DEC. 6-12, 2019
A Google Maps image from June shows the pond covering most of the sidewalk. Google
LAKE STREET
Crown Heights roadway
overtaken by massive puddle for
BY BEN VERDE
Homeowners in Crown Heights
have been forced to endure a massive,
undying puddle on their block for
more than a decade, and they claim
the city is too cheap to mop it up.
The huge pond forms along a curb
on Midwood Street between Utica
and Schenectady avenues, stretching
in front of a whopping eight houses
where the area’s disheveled street
dips to create a shallow basin.
And because there’s no drainage
there, the pond lives throughout the
year, causing locals to slip in the winter
and hold their noses in the summer,
according to one resident.
“In the summer it’s a swimming
pool, in the winter it’s a skating rink,”
said Bernadette Lewis, whose mother
owns a house on the street between
Utica and Schenectady Avenues.
And while residents hate it, the
raccoons love it, according to another
Midwood Street dweller, who
claims the vermin have gotten uppity
feasting on the trash that collects in
the nasty pool.
“They own the block – they run
up right in front of your face,” said
Wanda Hillaire.
Locals have complained to the Department
of Transportation about
the pond for years, and in a December
2018 email shared with the Brooklyn
Paper, Borough Commissioner Bray
outlines a solution for the ponding
which would essentially require the
city completely redo the street, with
new paving and curb cuts.
In a separate email from April
2019, Bray estimates the total cost of
such an operation would be north of
$4 Million.
And that’s apparently more than
the city is willing to spend on appeasing
a small group of working-class
Brooklynites, according to Hillaire,
who said the city would rather spend
the tax-payers’ money on ritzier parts
of town.
“This would never be in Park
Slope,” said Hillaire.
The Department of Transportation
did not respond to a request for
comment before deadline. The Department
of Environmental Protection
offered a terse, three-word statement.
“DEP will investigate,” said department
spokesman Edward Timbers.
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