Talk about cleaning up the streets!
Officers with the 78th Precinct towed a graffiti-covered, trash-stuffed sedan from the Sixth Avenue parking space it occupied for more than a week on Tuesday — roughly 24 hours after the Brooklyn Paper was first to report on neighbors’ frustration with officials over their refusal to remove the dump on wheels, and days after local police told one Sloper they couldn’t get rid of the ride.
A neighborhood-coordination officer from the precinct oversaw the car’s removal after police on Monday gave its owner a day to move it herself and she did not, according to a resident of the Sixth Avenue block between Fourth and Fifth streets where the vehicle sat for days, who requested anonymity after he tipped this newspaper off to the junk-packed jalopy.
And now that authorities hauled away the vehicle, every item within it must be catalogued per department policy, according to the resident.
“I was told that if the police had to resort to that, they would have to voucher all the contents of the car,” he said. “They were excellent. Some neighbors claim they took too long, but not me. I think they did a great job.”
The local first spotted the four-wheeled landfill — which was legally parked, and bears a valid license plate — on June 29, and another neighbor said the rumor was that a tow truck dragged the thing there in the dead of night.
“Another neighbor saw it towed here Friday night, I’m guessing it’s a private towing company somebody paid off,” said Arnold Sitruk.
And that would make sense, considering the driver’s seat — and every other inch of the nasty Toyta’s interior — was full to bursting with spent cans, empty bottles, bulging garbage bags, rotten rugs, two pairs of crutches, at least one copy of Anne Frank’s “The Diary of a Young Girl,” a broom, and some old luggage, along with whatever else lays beneath the visible filth inside the gas-powered dump — which a third block resident described as “a crime scene.”
A fourth block resident said he sought cops’ help in getting rid of the trashy ride days before they resorted to towing it, but police initially told him there was little they could do aside from continue to ticket it under alternate-side parking rules, because it occupied a legal parking space and had current plates. The car’s only violation is a seemingly expired inspection sticker, which can result in fines and tickets, according to state law.
“They basically said there’s nothing they can do,” said Steve Kabacinski, a 65-year Slope resident.
And as long as vehicles have valid license plates, they cannot be towed by the city’s Department of Sanitation either, according to a spokeswoman.
Before cops carted away the car, a missing front-passenger-side window made it a garbage fire waiting to happen, according to Sitruk, who said all it would take is one vandal with a lit match to turn the quality-of-life issue into something far worse.
“Anybody can throw a match in there,” he said.
