'Post-Modern' Crosswalk Installation Baffles Park Slopers

PARK SLOPE, BROOKLYN — A construction project in Park Slope has left the neighborhood with an unwelcome piece of post-modern art instead of a crosswalk.

The jumbled-up crosswalk — complete with a large patch of asphalt and several haphazardly placed white stripes — appeared on Fifth Street over the weekend after utility work on the street's intersection with Sixth Avenue.

The mishap left New Yorkers baffled as it was shared on social media.

"LOL what the hell is that?" one person wrote on a Tweet of the mess shared by Joanna Oltman Smith.

"'Crosswalk' by Pablo Picasso," replied another.

The work, which appears to extend from one manhole cover to another, also appears to have left a nearby Citi Bike station "destroyed." The screen for the Fifth Street dock was completely shattered, according to Smith's photos.

When asked about the construction, the Department of Transportation told Patch the project might be the Department of Design and Construction's handy-work.

When Patch reached out to DDC, the department said it was actually the Department of Environmental Protection, which operates the city's water system, that had overseen the construction.

DEP was investigating the situation on Monday and did not have any other details about what happened or whether it had been fixed, a spokesperson said.

Smith, who told Patch that she first noticed the mess on Saturday, said she was almost certain it had not been remedied as of Monday afternoon.

The project is just one example of a larger problem with bad workmanship on street projects going unchecked, she said.

"This fiasco at 6th Avenue and 5th Street is just the latest," Smith said, noting another issue with a bike lane on Bergen Street.

It is also not the first time water main work has caused problems on Sixth Avenue.

A years-long project called Bed798 that aimed to replace old water mains along Park Place, St. Johns Place, Sixth Avenue once left dozens of homeowners complaining about flooding and cracked basement walls. That project was managed by DDC.