New York City might have a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle problem.
Trespassers were seen climbing into an open manhole on a Brooklyn street early Friday morning not once, but twice, cops said.
Just like the movie creatures who famously lived in the city sewer system, the group of about a half-dozen men have been spending hours in the slimy underground.
The men bizarrely removed a manhole cover and entered the sewer system at at Hayward Street and Bedford Avenue in Williamsburg at around 1 a.m. on Friday, police said.
They were caught on video climbing out of the manhole around 3:40 a.m. and taking off in a vehicle, police said.
At about 2 a.m., a group of men was captured on video removing a manhole cover and descending into the sewer about five miles away at McDonald Avenue and Collin Place in Gravesend, according to cops.
It wasn’t immediately clear if the incidents were linked, cops said.
“Right now, we can’t say that they’re the same,” a police spokesman said.
“It’s very peculiar that there’s similar incidents within miles of one another,” the spokesman added, explaining that investigators are reviewing video of both incidents.
The NYPD’s Emergency Services Unit did a sweep of the sewers and found nothing, another spokesman said.
“There was a concern so they just went down to make sure everything was safe,” the spokesman said.
Later, a crew from the city Department of Environmental Protection was seen working at the site of the Gravesend incident.
They were “inspecting the sewer infrastructure at this location to ensure there is no damage to the system,” a DEP spokesperson told The Post.
Meanwhile, residents were fearful of potential attacks on the two neighborhoods with large Jewish populations.
“The community was very alarmed,” said Joey Saban, chief of staff for state Sen. Sam Sutton ( D-Brooklyn), adding that he was concerned about a nearby school in Gravesend.
“It’s a bizarre incident,” Saban said. “This entire situation underscores how vulnerable the community feels.”
A Shomrim cop car was parked over the manhole in Williamsburg Saturday.
Anthony Purdie, who is homeless, said he saw a lot of commotion at the intersection late Friday night.
“I was coming back from the Chinese restaurant, I was eating wonton soup, and I saw four to five cops here,” the 65-year-old retired Doe Fund employee said.
“I’m homeless so I thought they were coming for me so I walked away,” he said. “Then I heard on the radio . . . that seven men came out of the manhole. That’s crazy.”
In the past, police have questioned people who said they went into the sewer on a sort of “treasure hunt” looking for things that were lost, a police source said.
The incidents happened the same month Westchester grandmother Donike Gocaj, 56, fell into an open manhole to her death in Midtown, Manhattan.
Additional reporting by Doree Lewak
