The Brooklyn House of Detention is overflowing — but this time it’s not with criminals!
For some reason, the Department of Correction, which runs the controversial Atlantic Avenue lockup, has chosen to park its armored buses along Court Street between Livingston and State streets, leaving streets clogged, parking spaces diminished and community members outraged.
“Any entity that has buses crowding the parking spots and leaving their engines running — you bet we’re not gonna be happy about it!” said Irene Janner, a member of Community Board 2. “Court Street becomes kind of a no-man’s land where people dump their cars. This is not what we see as ‘traffic calming.’ ”
The House of D is, after all, just around the corner from the department’s new makeshift parking lot, which has been filled with as many as three buses in the last few days. A Courier-Life reporter first spotted the buses on Monday, but when the reporter made a return visit on Tuesday also saw the tell-tale white conveyances.
And it’s probably happening more than we know: Punching up the block on Google Street View also revealed one of the parked buses.
The city hasn’t had much time to defend itself yet — Correction Department officials are still trying to figure out what is going on.
“It’s usually the parked cop cars that people are worried about,” said agency spokesman Steve Morello. “But we are going to figure out what’s going on as soon as possible.”
Morello explained that the House of D is used for processing inmates, and that the long white buses generally park inside to unload offenders. Why the buses are moving to Heights shoppers’ parking spaces, he said, is a mystery that he promised to solve soon.