The city finally filled a massive car-eating crater in Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s old Long Island City district in Queens — but it’s expanding faster than NYC’s budget deficit, and even causing accidents.
The monster pothole emerged as a mere depression nearly a month ago, smack in the middle of a two-lane, one-way, westbound strip along 41st Avenue between 23rd and 24th streets.
But it grew to be a hazardous hole — roughly 6-feet-long, 5-feet-wide and nearly 30 inches deep — when The Post measured it on April 22.
City crews filled the hellhole two days later, but neighborhood residents said the asphalt patchwork started sinking within hours.
A pick-up truck cruising down the dimly-lit strip early Monday swerved to avoid being gobbled up by the crater, and slammed into a parked car, damaging both vehicles, eyewitnesses said.
The truck’s driver, who identified himself as “Hassan,” told The Post through a translator his vehicle had to be towed due to extensive damage and demanded the city pick up the tab.
“The city collects so much money [from taxpayers], but nothing ever gets fixed right,” said Hassan, adding he left a note for the owner of the car he hit but has yet to hear back.
“Everything is the same s–t every day. More and more accidents. The city has to pay for this accident.”
The chasm erupted in front of the 17-story “Q41” condo complex, located in the former industrial neighborhood-turned-residential hotspot.
City Department of Transportation crews twice responded to photograph it and temporarily patch it, residents said.
Mohammad Hasan, Q41’s doorman, took matters into his own hands. He first put traffic cones and yellow hazard tape around the hole, then stuck a large shovel in the pit so drivers would see it. After someone ran over the shovel, the doorman sprayed the pothole and the street around it fluorescent orange, and planted a broomstick with a red flag in it.
“I wish this would get fixed – it’s only getting worse,” said the doorman, who was running out of ideas and equipment.
One Q41 resident mocked Mamdani for donning a hardhat on Staten Island last month to trumpet the 100,000th pothole fixed by the city since he took office on Jan. 1.
“This is what sewer socialism looks like — big promises, no action, and a doorman left doing all the work,” the resident said Friday. “The city couldn’t fill a pothole, so our doorman stepped in to keep people safe. When he retires, who’s looking out for New Yorkers — the Department of Transportation or nobody?”
Building residents following Monday’s crash placed an abandoned Con Edison street barricade in front the hole to prevent future accidents. They’ve had to move it back multiple times because vehicles knocked it down.
Q41’s condo president, who identified herself as “Nastasha,” said the DOT’s “patchwork isn’t holding and the pothole is still a real safety hazard.”
“Whether or not it directly caused the accident, it’s the kind of condition that puts people at risk every day.” she added. “This needs a permanent repair, not another temporary fix.”
The agency’s failure to fill a hole continues to baffle local residents.
“It’s really dangerous because it’s right in the middle of the street and it’s hard to see — especially at night — because there’s no lighting around,” said Amy Chen, who works at M Tea across the street from the super hole.
Additional reporting by JC Rice.
