Thread: Neighbors' action rids corner of day laborers

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Off the block
Neighbors' action rids corner of day laborers

By Brian Zanzonico August 03, 2006


For more than a year, whenever residents of Sherwood Avenue in Franklin Square gave directions to their homes to first-time visitors, they'd tell them to take Hempstead Turnpike and turn at the collection of men gathered on the corner.

Each morning, like clockwork, for years, dozens of day laborers gathered and waited to be picked up by contractors, neighbors said. Some waited on the sidewalk next to the Hess station. Others used 1141 Hempstead Turnpike, which once housed Skaggs-Walsh Fuel Oil Inc. but is now vacant, as their private trash bin and toilet, neighbors said. Several neighbors said that on more than one occasion they have caught men defecating and urinating on lawns, drinking and harassing women. Residents who drive SUVs said they've stopped to fill up at Hess only to have their cars mobbed by laborers who mistook them for contractors.

Finally, after more than a year of lobbying police, local and federal officials and the gas station owners to get the laborers off their block, progress has been made.

A No Trespassing sign is now posted on the gas station grounds, in both English and Spanish. Police have been impounding the cars of contractors. The number of people who gather has dwindled dramatically.

"The residents are tired and fed up," said Paula, who declined to give her last name. She and her husband, Anthony, put their home, which has been in Paula's family for generations, up for sale a couple of years ago, in part to get away from what they said became an unofficial hiring center. But she found that potential buyers were reluctant to make any offers because, she said, there were concerns about what was going on down the block.

There were calls to police, but even their presence did little to deter laborers from gathering. Neighbors signed petitions calling on the local government to take action, met with county Tax Assessor Harvey Levinson and County Executive Tom Suozzi and called local legislators and assemblymen. When local officials didn't react, Paula wrote down and e-mailed the license plate numbers of contractors to the Department of Finance and the Department of Homeland Security.

"The politicians passed the buck," she said. "We asked the town; they told us it's not a town issue, it's a county issue. The county told us it's a federal issue."

At a community meeting in Elmont several months ago, residents pressed representatives from Congresswoman Carolyn McCarthy's office to contact the Immigration and Naturalization Service and the Internal Revenue Service in the hope that agents would come to Hempstead Turnpike and see what was happening. But a spokesman for McCarthy said the agencies were unlikely to investigate. "The INS doesn't have the resources to camp out and take down license plates," Robert Recklaus said at the time. "The federal government doesn't have mechanisms in place to enforce this stuff. The IRS and INS won't investigate a spot -- it has to have the name of a contractor breaking the law."

But that has changed recently. Not long ago a Sherwood Avenue homeowner named Mike walked into the Hess station and spoke with one of its owners. The two went to the 5th Precinct station house and jointly filed a complaint about day laborers trespassing on gas station grounds. Within a day, the No Trespassing sign was up.

"It does us no good to have [laborers] harassing our customers," said Rick Lawler, Hess's vice president of retail, about the Hess station owner's cooperation with neighbors.

Soon after the visit to the police station, the precinct's Problem Oriented Policing unit was a regular presence, ticketing and at times impounding contractors' vehicles. Soon the IRS began to monitor the block.

Sgt. Edward Grim, head of the 5th Precinct's POP unit, said that before the recent pressure put on contractors and laborers to vacate the site, cops had intervened in the past when laws governing littering, gambling and urinating in public were being broken. Grim said some men went to the site with the intention of putting in an honest day's work, but others just looked for trouble.

"Some guys aren't there to be picked up," Grim said. "They just go to roll dice. They look to make money off the workers."

Carlos Chirinos, a Mexican day laborer who walked almost an hour every day to the site, said the majority of men who waited on the corner of Sherwood Avenue and Hempstead Turnpike - and have since moved their meeting spot to a Citgo gas station up the road - are honest, hardworking men seeking the same American dream European immigrants sought in the generations past. "There are some guys who are a problem," he said. "That shames me and all the other men who are trying to save money to bring our families here. We're not all like that."

Mike, along with several other neighbors, has gone beyond the police and IRS to rid the block of laborers. Every day, rain or shine, Mike stands on the corner, jots down the license plate numbers of contractors and reports them to the POP unit. He has even knocked on trucks' windows and asked them to leave the block.

Neighbors said they are not against laborers working, explaining that they fully support the establishment of a hiring hall in a commercially zoned part of town. The men of Sherwood Avenue, including one New York City detective, said they didn't like the idea of men knowing what time they leave the house each morning for work with wives and young children home alone all day. Women on the block wrote letters to the Herald about their experiences.

"I open my door each day to go to work and heads turn," wrote one woman, a five-year resident of the block. "What an uneasy feeling it is to have strangers know your schedule. Is someone waiting for a robbery? A rape?"

Another woman said she didn't like the idea of strange men gathering on a block where so many young children live. "What happened to our right and our safety, and that of our children?" one person wrote. "Imagine living in a neighborhood where your children can't go outside and play because you're afraid. Should our children have to witness these men urinating on the sidewalk and shouting sexual remarks at their mother?"

Since the police and IRS have gotten involved, Mike said, the number of day laborers who gather on the corner has decreased from several dozen to two. "Persistence pays off," he said.

Comments about this story? FSeditor@liherald.com or (516) 569-4000 ext. 240.

Carlos Chirinos, a Mexican day laborer who walked almost an hour every day to the site, said the majority of men who waited on the corner of Sherwood Avenue and Hempstead Turnpike - and have since moved their meeting spot to a Citgo gas station up the road - are honest, hardworking men seeking the same American dream European immigrants sought in the generations past. "There are some guys who are a problem," he said. "That shames me and all the other men who are trying to save money to bring our families here. We're not all like that."


Honest You are in this country illegally. Save money to bring your families here. More drain on the already over burdened system. Deport all their butts

First, if they are standing around gas stations why aren't they using the bathrooms there?

Have these people been raised in a barn? Why are they urinating and defacating in public?

This irks me to no end!!

Second, with their help, we are losing the so called "American Dream", they are depressing wages, we are losing too many jobs as it is, with outsourcing.

Give me a stinkin' break!