"A vigilant Brooklyn Heights man picked-up his video camera early Monday and uploaded onto YouTube a jaw-dropping clip totaling just over four minutes of crinkling metal and concaving bodywork that would make a detailer's stomach churn. The footage reveals a white Ford Explorer and two other sedans parked on Joralemon Street near Hicks Street that became a demolition derby victims after a Sanitation tow truck attempted to haul a hulking orange front end loader for several hours since around 6 a.m."
"'The crazy thing here....the vehicle WAS....wait for it....A NYC Dept of Buildings city owned vehicle. I went down, I know the owner, they are aware of the video and no police ever came,' the video's poster said."*posted by ericb at 9:56 AM on December 28, 2010
"The outraged wife of the vehicle’s owner, who didn’t want to appear on camera because her husband works for the City that owns the damaged vehicle, spoke with CBS 2 Tuesday.posted by ericb at 10:39 AM on December 28, 2010 [3 favorites]
'There should’ve been a City official here. There should’ve been a supervisor. This was unacceptable disregard for personal property,' she said.
One witness told us as the accident unfolded it only seemed to get worse. 'They seemed so concerned about just ripping the mirror off. They put a note and everything. And then they went and just destroyed this car.'
'Myself all my neighbors outside were screaming stop before they even started, and they totally disregarded us and they said they were told to move the vehicle no matter what the cost,' the wife said.
And it is a high cost to pay, in both insurance premiums and body work."*
“ … The tenant couldn't believe the situation unfolding before him at around 9:30 a.m.posted by ericb at 10:47 AM on December 28, 2010 [2 favorites]
‘I knew it was going to end bad,’ said John K., 46. ‘They got this huge tow truck that's used for buses and tractor trailers and they're using it to lift up the front end of another snow plow. And they're flailing because they have the back wheels off the ground. And it just went from bad to worse.’
He threw on some clothes and darted downstairs, where his landlord's wife stood helplessly watching her husband's work wheels get totaled.
‘Why weren't they putting chains on while they were lifting it up,’ he asked. ‘They could have drove it out themselves. I went down after they pulled it into the intersection and I saw my landlord and she was baffled; really beside herself.’
Arriving home to a pile of metal that once was his city-owned Ford Explorer was Eugene McArdle. He was summoned from work after he spent all morning shoveling the snow from his stoop.
‘One car belongs to my daughter and one belongs to my work,’ he told The Post. ‘They called me at work and told me it got struck and they [Sanitation] destroyed my car.’
Upon returning to his Brooklyn block he surveyed the eye-cringing damage.
‘They basically got the whole back and the car behind it. ‘They almost took out that hydrant. If I didn't dig it out of the snow earlier they would have taken it out too.’
As for the man who witnessed everything and put the snafu online, his clip has yielded hundreds of hits and he's received thousands of responses -- even death threats.
As bad as the damage suffered to the three autos was John K. said the Sanitation crew ducked devastation.
‘The widows blew out, and the bucket itself caught on the car,’ he said. ‘I really thought they were gonna run over it.’” *
"Have you ever watched a child play with toy trucks? Like, backhoes and front-end loaders and other heavy machinery made of plastic? They love to drive and smash them around, as if the light toys were actually causing serious damage, or at least doing some heavy lifting. Well, that's what it's like to watch these Sanitation Department workers attempting to pull a snowplow out of an embankment on Joralemon Street in Brooklyn Heights yesterday. Except the massive machines that are floundering about are very much real, and they are very much destroying a white Ford Explorer and the cars around it. If you watch the video with the sound turned off (which we kind of recommend at first because the guy who filmed it is firing off expletives left and right), it almost looks innocent and silly. But then when you listen to the crunching noises, you realize what kind of damage these things are actually doing. The kicker? The Ford that received the brunt of the damage was a city-owned vehicle." *posted by ericb at 3:00 PM on December 28, 2010
"Mayor Michael Bloomberg says the city will most likely cover the damages to a vehicle that was hit by a snow plow during Monday's blizzard cleanup in Brooklyn Heights.posted by ericb at 3:04 PM on December 28, 2010
... 'I'll leave it to the lawyers but I assume we probably are responsible if our plow hits them,' Bloomberg said during a Tuesday press conference. 'I don't know any reason why we wouldn't be, but it's a question for our lawyers and if you talk to our lawyer department, they'd be happy to give you an answer to that.'
A spokesperson for the Department of Sanitation was not sure if a claim for the damages had been filed."
If you witness and/or document in any form (e.g. get the license plate info, videotape) any damage (no matter how minor) to my vehicle parked on the side of a public or private road, street, avenue, lane, parking lot, thoroughfare, path, turnpike, highway, parkway, throughway, freeway and expressway, I will be appreciative and grateful. Even if you refuse, I will reward you for your assistance. Such which will allow me to most assuredly file a valid and detailed claim with my insurance company. I will be happy to provide you a gift certificate to a local restaurant and a bottle of Veuve Cliquot (or, other appropriate beverage) for your efforts.** -- Thank you to the neighboring family who witnessed a drunk driver plow into my parked car and noted the car's make, model and license plate. You made my -- and the insurance company's -- handling of the incident much easier. As such, with concrete evidence, my rates were not increased in that instance.
"Alternate-side parking rules and meter regulations will continue their hiatus on Thursday, the city transportation department announced this afternoon.posted by ericb at 11:28 AM on December 29, 2010
With the rules already scheduled to be suspended on Friday and Saturday in observance of New Year’s and the rules unenforced on Sundays, that will make eight days in a row where you can park practically at will in this crazy town, contingent on your shoveling skills (or leave your car where it is). You may now celebrate."
“As he picked up his cell phone Monday morning and began recording the comedy of errors involving a tow truck and a front-end loader snow right outside his Brooklyn Heights window, John Knightly knew something unusual was going to happen.posted by ericb at 11:42 AM on December 29, 2010
But looking back he said he never could have guessed how unusual, or that his video would be watched all over the world.
‘It’s blown up to proportions I could never have expected,’ he said. ‘I’m dumbfounded.’
Knightly, 47, a South Hadley native who still has family in the area, became - quite literally - an overnight sensation when he posted the 4-minute video on YouTube showing some city workers trying to free a piece of heavy equipment from an unplowed street. In the process, they destroyed a parked SUV.
Within hours after he was persuaded by friends to post it on YouTube, the video went viral, spreading from person to person and from computer to computer like a digital wildfire.
In a little more than 24 hours, the video has been seen more than 720,000 times on YouTube, making it the 11th most-watched video and the 4th most-watched comedy video for the day.
As of 10 p.m. Tuesday, it was the number one video in Australia, although Knightly confesses he does not know why.
… Monday morning he was in his apartment when he heard a commotion out in the street. A front-end loader had gotten stuck in the snow-covered street and the tow truck was trying to pull it out.
Knightly said he had a feeling it wasn’t going to go very well. They had been at it with out much success for close to two hours, and every now and again, he would look out the window and record it with his phone.
‘I could see it escalating. It (the loader) was just going nowhere’ he said. ‘They got fed up and at any cost they just decided to pull it out.’
The loader slid to the side and smashed into the snow-covered SUV. The tow truck would back up to regroup and pull again, and the loader would again slide into the SUV. Eventually, the tow truck driver floored it, pulling the loader out with a display of brute force that left the SUV in a heap on the sidewalk. The SUV was in the care of the husband of his landlady, and she can be heard screaming at the city workers ‘No one is leaving here until I have a police report.’
… Initially shocked, Knightly said it wasn’t until he loaded it on his computer and watched it for the first time that he realized how comical it all was.
He said he thinks it stuck an immediate nerve with New Yorkers in particular because everyone is fed up with the city’s response to the storm.
‘For me, it was humorous,’ he said. ‘With the exception of the F-bombs and the questionable language, I thought it was pretty funny.’”
“Nobody leaves here until I get a police report!” [Kathleen McArdle] yelled. “This is ridiculous!”posted by ericb at 11:50 AM on December 29, 2010
No cops came by that morning, as crews dealt with the larger citywide disaster. The Sanitation Department said on Tuesday that it is “investigating” the incident that destroyed the $37,000 city car, and two others in a maelstrom of twisted metal.
The three vehicles were still on the street on Tuesday afternoon, their windows smashed in and yellow paint — likely from the snowplow — pock-marking their dents and scratches.
It may not be the worst story of the great blizzard that struck predominantly in Brooklyn on Dec. 26, but it’s certainly one of the most baffling — especially considering the four-minute-long footage, which shows both the tow truck and tractor-turned-snowplow backing repeatedly into the McArdle’s cars and a third vehicle.
“They knew they were hitting the cars — I was sitting there screaming,” Kathleen McArdle told us. “But they ignored us. They just kept going.”
The city has been mostly mute on the subject, likely because of the incriminating evidence.
... The Heights wreck wasn’t even the only Sanitation Department shenanigan caught on tape in the wake of the storm. Another YouTube video, posted by Coney Island resident Jason Letterman early Monday morning, shows three department snowplows parked at 18th and Coney Island avenues — while their drivers sit in a nearby Dunkin’ Donuts. Letterman claims that the trucks were parked there for more than five hours, and that both avenues are still covered in white powder.
“Obviously they’re saying they can’t do anything because there are cars all over the street,” Letterman told us. “But why don’t they take them somewhere else and get the job done? Sitting in Dunkin’ Donuts is ridiculous. They’re crippling the city.”
The city didn’t comment on the video by our no-coffee-break deadline.
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posted by ericb at 9:44 AM on December 28, 2010 [1 favorite]