how to get your street unblocked & plowed
So, a dumbass abandoned their SUV in the middle of Calyer St. at some point Sunday night. This meant that when the plow went through on Monday, it could only get about 1/3 of the way up the street. This meant that every car who turned onto Calyer St., seeing it plowed, had to then back out onto Franklin St. (which was already enough of a mess). Mostly, I got tired of hopping up from what I was doing when I heard a car spinning out as it backed up, because I was sure someone was going to careen into my car. (Keep in mind this happened every 7 minutes on average. Yes, I timed it.)
I got dressed and went outside, took photographs, confirmed the location of the stuck vehicle. I came back inside, and wrote emails to Marty Markowitz (Brooklyn Borough President), Stephen Levin (District 33 City Council member) and Joseph Lentol (State Assemblyman for North Brooklyn). I used the text of the email as a Tumblr post, mostly so I didn’t have to send a photo as an attachment, but I wanted them to be able to SEE the problem as well as read about it.
I made sure to forward this email to my favorite neighborhood blogger-activist, Miss Heather over at New York Shitty (aka That Greenpoint Blog), who basically blogged what I sent her, which was the same email that went to the elected officials noted above.
Two hours later, I got a phone call from Stephen Levin personally. This morning, I got calls from Joe Lentol’s office, followed by two emails this afternoon. And the car was gone by 8pm last night, and the street was plowed not long afterwards.
I know it isn’t sexy or hip or cool, but you know what? My fucking street got unblocked and plowed.
