Is New York Becoming Detroit East?

By Nicholas Stix

I just walked by the site (Rockaway Beach Boulevard and Beach 113th-115th/116th Street), where the night Hurricane Sandy hit more than a dozen businesses burned down. Over five months after the fire, about 80 percent of the rubble has been cleared away, and the storefronts on the Western side (115th-114th) are smooth sand and dirt.

For weeks after the fire, open pipes from the properties gushed millions of gallons of clean water, and even after the big gusher was shut off, a smaller leak could be seen crossing the sidewalk into the street for several weeks more.

Two or three weeks ago, the last leak was shut down. But today, a new gusher is shooting about 100 gallons a minute into the air. Already a little pond has formed. I asked two transit Autority workers repairing the damaged damaged A train subway fence, and they said it was like that when they came to work this morning. “Some crackhead cut the pipe” for copper to sell.

Crackheads cutting water pipes for copper?! Where are we, Detroit?!