Brooklyn eyesore: Abandoned trucks on neighborhood street for years
BROOKLYN, New York (WABC) -- For a hard-working music teacher, it's been a four-year "rhapsody of rage" - a battle he's waged against the city to get three abandoned tractor trailers towed off his block.
After three dozen complaints to the city and getting ping-ponged around, he threw up his hands and honked the horn for us to help.
"I'm beyond frustration," he said.
That is how the Brooklyn resident, who asked to remain nameless, described his futile fight to get the city to remove the vehicles.
"It's an eyesore," he said of the situation that has been going on since the January blizzard of 2015.
Fast forward three years, and not only are the trucks still there, but the inside of one truck is loaded with garbage. The tires are either flat or ripped off. And under the hood? Nada. The truck's engine is gone.
From the top of his building, one can see the truck dirty secret.
"It's like a can opener ripped it open," he said.
The trailer is littered with trash, and in the summer, it smells. When it rains?
"The water's stagnant, then we have an influx of mosquitoes," he said.
Then there's the parking issue. Both sides of the street are subject to street cleaning rules.
"Parking is at a premium, and you have these tractor trailers taking up at least 20 spots for vehicles," he said.
We found two of the three trucks had hundreds in sanitation fines, but we found no parking violations.
"We've been ticketed" he said. "It's an alternate side of the street parking. And it (the trucks) hasn't been moved, hasn't been ticketed. Nothing."
The trucks' owner isn't hiding. Each windshield has a printout listing the truck owner's name and address.
"I've called 311, maybe in the last two and a half years, 15 to 20 times," he said. "Sanitation, at least 20 times."
After a call to us, we tracked down the trucks' owner, and he started removing the trucks until only the cab with no engine was left. We got the city to tow it away.
"Thank you so much, I don't think this would've been done without you," the resident said.
So why weren't the trucks towed?
Sanitation pointed to the NYPD and vice-versa, which is exactly what happened to our frustrated resident. As for why there were no parking tickets written, the NYPD only said it's up "to the officer's discretion" whether or not to write a ticket.
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