Pow!
Legendary 92-year-old Courier Life columnist Lou Powsner has pounded the city in print for letting a pot hole-strewn stretch of Avenue P fall into disrepair. This week, he finally received something he’s been demanding for years: a smoother ride for his 1997 Mercury Sable.
The Department of Transportation announced this week that it will repave Avenue P between 65th Street and Ocean Parkway — and Powsner couldn’t be happier.
“People avoid Avenue P just because of the conditions of the road,” said Powsner. “I’m thrilled they’re going to fix it.”
City officials said workers will resurface the street to cover up a lunar landscape’s worth of craters caused by wear and tear from passing vehicles. The strip has been largely unattended — but not unnoticed by Powsner — since 2009.
A Department of Transportation spokesman said the work will take place in May — but wouldn’t say how much the project would cost.
Powsner has long complained that the street bangs up his Sable when he drives to Midwood to visit his doctor or grab a bite at the Mirage Diner on Kings Highway.
The road gives him head and butt aches every times he rides along it, he claims.
“You’ll be driving along at a normal speed, then all of a sudden you’re bouncing up and down,” the former Coney Island menswear shop owner said. “It’s all rutted. I’ve called the Councilman David Greenfield’s office 36 times in the last year and a half and I never got the courtesy of getting an answer.”
A rep for Greenfield (D–Bensonhurst) said the councilman’s staff received Powsner’s complaints and forwarded them to the Department of Transportation, but the city won’t say if the senior’s many grievances — both in person and in print — sparked change.
But the beloved nonagenarian isn’t the only one who thinks the city should have rehabbed the riddled roadway years ago.
“It’s gotten pretty bad,” said Wolf Sender, Community Board 12’s district manager. “This has been a priority for a long time.”
Reach reporter Daniel Bush at dbush@cnglocal.com or by calling (718) 260-8310. Follow him at twitter.com/dan_bush.
