Finally! Massive Sunset Park Sinkhole Is No More

SUNSET PARK, BROOKLYN — A massive sinkhole that swallowed up a significant chunk of the intersection at 5th Ave. and 64th St. in Sunset Park has been fully repaired by the city.

The hole emerged on Aug. 4 of 2015. Workers with the city's Department of Environmental Protection, which supervised repairs, later released construction photos showing just how deep the problem went.

Photo courtesy of DEP

The DEP said its workers wound up digging 60 feet down, replacing a 48-inch-wide water main, cleaning and reinforcing a 15-foot-wide sewer line, and installing new sewer and water pipes.

The whole process took more than a year, shutting down much of the intersection and the sidewalk on 5th Avenue's western side. In August, one local business told Patch that they'd lost a third of their customers during the work, due to the lack of area foot traffic.

On Monday, that employee expressed delight at the new street and sidewalk outside her business, saying that she was living in "a whole new world that we haven't seen for [13] months."

But as is so often the case, one problem can beget another.

The employee said that the street lights on the block were off during the course of construction and haven't gone back on yet, pitching the area into extreme darkness at night. The worker said she's reported the issue to the city, but hasn't been told anything about a repair schedule.

We've reached out to the city's Department of Transportation, which handles street lights, and we'll update this post with whatever we learn.

[H/T News 12 Brooklyn]

Pictured at top: the repaired sinkhole at 5th Avenue and 64th Street. Photo by John V. Santore