On Park Slope's Fifth Street, Neighbors Aid a Car-Dweller in Need

Pictured: a street in Park Slope; photo by Karl Norling

PARK SLOPE, BROOKLYN — Writing for the New York Times last week, reporter Jim Dwyer told the story of a Park Slope man, known by neighbors only as "Gene," who seemed fated to spend the rest of his nights sleeping on a "mildewing futon" in his Ford Explorer, parked permanently on Fifth Street — until the surrounding community came to his rescue.

As a young man, Gene earned his Ph.D. in chemistry and worked as an accomplished pharmaceutical researcher, according to the Times. And around eight years ago, he moved into an apartment at 375 Fifth Street.

But come February 2015, bad luck — and perhaps some poor choices — left him homeless on the curb.

As time passed, families on the street started talking online about forcing Gene to leave. “It was quickly whipping up into a frenzy, as things sometimes do on that Listserv,” resident Todd A. Wiener said in an interview with the Times.

That’s when Weiner decided to launch a neighborhood intervention.

Read the full story in the New York Times.