Abandoned car on Sterling

mr. tips

Anyone know the deal with that Brown car on STERLING (btwn Washington & Underhill) that never moves, its FULL of...stuff, and one window is either missing or just left wide open? Why hasnt it been towed? Why isnt it covered with tickets?


EDIT: Sterling, not prospect, STERLING!!!

wirenut

I also saw it but have no idea

sillybilly

How about caling 311?

vanilla

i thought it did move, just always btw underhill & washington - but is it really just always on prospect?

mr. tips

vanilla wrote: i thought it did move, just always btw underhill & washington - but is it really just always on prospect?

Nope doesnt move for ASS (heheheh) has some old ticket(s) on it, flat tire(s) and always in the same spot.

izisharp

Either the car IS moving, or else there's an identical one on Sterling Place, between Underhill and Washington: shitty brown car; no rear-right window; flat rear-right tire; all but driver's seat covered with junk... Bizarre.

mr. tips

izisharp wrote: Either the car IS moving, or else there's an identical one on Sterling Place, between Underhill and Washington: shitty brown car; no rear-right window; flat rear-right tire; all but driver's seat covered with junk... Bizarre.

AH I am stupid, I meant Sterling.

EDIT: and yes thats the car.

asil

I've been seeing that car around for years! It must be moved sometimes, because it isn't always in exactly the same spot on that block. And it either used to park on St. Johns between Washington and Underhill, or there's a similar car filled with stuff on that block, too.

poppy13

Any pics?

arches

My attempts to deal with abandoned cars via 311 have been pretty fruitless. Here's some advice from ParadeRest (from another thread) on dealing with the abandoned Saab on Park Pl. near the Q subway station. The Saab definitely hasn't moved for 7 months, maybe more.

Haven't gotten around to calling the Marshall yet, so i can't report on whether that works....but I will.


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arches wrote:

So it is just a waiting game before these cars eventually get dealt with? What qualifies as an abandoned vehicle in the eyes of the local precinct?

ParadeRest wrote:
It has nothing to do with the eyes of the local precinct. It is not as easy as saying, "Oh, that car has been parked here for too long. It must have been abandoned." I wish it was that easy because I'd spend alot less time answering 911 jobs and alot more time towing cars.

-Does the car have plates?
-Does the car have extensive damage?
-Was the car set on fire?
-Is it just the shell of a car?
-Is there evidence supporting the belief that the car was stolen? (It appeared overnight, the locks are broken and the airbags are missing)
-Did somebody see the driver bail out of car and maybe left it running?
-Is the VIN plate damaged/missing?
-Are major parts of the car missing?

If it's simply a matter of the vehicle racking up a tremendous amount of fines you should try to call the Marshall and tip them off as to where the vehicle is located.

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liftandcut

I think the car does move. I don't think it is abandoned, even though it is filled with stuff, has the broken window and flat tire. I've seen the car around here for a while now. I believe it is a Buick Park Avenue.

mr. tips

Theres no way that car is moving. Underneath is lots of crapola that would have been swept away during ASS and now it has a fresh ticket.

liftandcut

You may very well be right, but I don't have a problem with it being on the block. It seems like somebody is using it for something. If it has an owner and that person does indeed need it, I wouldn't want to take it away.

arches

That Buick on Sterling has been getting tickets in the exact same location since early November, 2007...the owner owes $695 in tickets and late fees.

Parade Rest helped us finally got rid of that Saab on Park...maybe the Buick can get the same treatment?

In front of 423 Sterling
Brown Buick 4 door sedan
Missouri tags, 747 TMN
Missing left rear window
Flat tires

underhill_mt

I called 311 and they made a report to the police precinct. I know this is what they always do, mostly to no avail, but I called anyway to at least log the complaint. They emailed me the confirmation. We'll see what happens.

That car has been there since last year (at least November) and I appreciate someone needing some time to sort some things out, but if that were my car w/NY plates and I had that many tickets I'd be towed. It's not cool to leave the car there. When it's gone there will be one more parking spot available to those of us who actually live here and move our cars responsibly.

raw

Underhill_MT wrote: I called 311 and they made a report to the police precinct. I know this is what they always do, mostly to no avail, but I called anyway to at least log the complaint. They emailed me the confirmation. We'll see what happens.

That car has been there since last year (at least November) and I appreciate someone needing some time to sort some things out, but if that were my car w/NY plates and I had that many tickets I'd be towed. It's not cool to leave the car there. When it's gone there will be one more parking spot available to those of us who actually live here and move our cars responsibly.

The car's owner could be dead. You'd think the cops would have the ability to do an investigation. Did the cops not notice the huge pile of tickets when they were sticking new tickets on the car?

arches

raw wrote: The car's owner could be dead. You'd think the cops would have the ability to do an investigation. Did the cops not notice the huge pile of tickets when they were sticking new tickets on the car?

If the owner was dead, we would have probably seen a "What's that horrible stench on Sterling?!?" a few days after the car stopped moving. (hmm, actually, I think i remember that thread).

The cops don't write the tickets...the ticket agents do. Their "systems" apparently don't cross communicate...for example, a stolen car can sit for weeks getting tickets with no alert to the police. The whole abandoned car/311/months of tickets/easy quota filler thing has been much discussed here.

The key takeaway is that the car can only be towed for having a lot of tickets (by the Marshall), or (apparently) the cops can use some discretion if its obvious that its abandoned...but it's a hassle and the criteria are fairly rigid - particularly if the car has plates. One of our police-posters took care of it last time (Saab on Park)...i'm not exactly sure how.

izisharp

Sounds like a "Help Me, Howard" situation to me.

prospectus

Fun Fact:

In Philadelphia, the neighborhoods were so neglected that when the city finally tried fix its problems it had to spend years on stuff like abandoned cars and dead street trees, before they even started on burnt-out buildings.

Between 2000 and the end of 2002, the city dragged away 137,756 abandoned cars. At one point they were doing 1,000 a day. By the beginning of this year, their total was up over 230,000.

http://www.mayors.org/uscm/us_mayor_newspaper/documents/04_15_02/philadelphia.asp

bkchickie

When I lived in Boston (granted, a much smaller city), reporting an abandoned vehicle went like this:

1. Call the "Abandoned Vehicle Hotline".
2. Give the operator as much information about the car as you could (make, model, color, plate #, no plate, etc.), location parked (in front of X, at the corner of X and Y) and how long you think it had been parked.
3. The operator would tell you that the city will wait another two to three weeks (pragmatically hoping that the car would get moved by then, but also so that there was documentation of the time between the call and the towing).
4. A few days before the tow truck came the police would ticket the car with a bright green "Abandoned" ticket. If the car wasn't truly abandoned, this would be enough to get the owner to move the car.
5. Tow truck came, car was gone.

Is New York too big to implement something like this?

I lived on short dead-end street that seemed to be a popular place to dump a car. I bet that we called the city at least three times a year to report an abandoned car.

underhill_mt

izisharp wrote: Sounds like a "Help Me, Howard" situation to me.

So brilliant. I wonder what it takes to get Howard on the case...