By Alex Christodoulides
“A car fell in one of them. Well, the front wheel,” Frank Gulluscio, district manager of Community Board 6, said last month. Since that time, the car-swallowing sinkhole has been repaired, he said, but there are still others along Yellowstone Boulevard.”It's happened before sporadically in the past,” Gulluscio said of the sinkholes.Late last year the city Department of Environmental Protection has put sawhorses across sinkholes on Yellowstone Boulevard at Kessel, Juno and Fleet streets, which remained in place at least late into December. This area was one of several in Forest Hills that flooded during the Aug. 8 storm, although not to the extent that Yellowstone Boulevard did to the north of Queens Boulevard. While the flooding and sinkholes may not be linked, it is noteworthy that the neighborhood is again visited by a problem involving sewers — the sinkholes are all located near sewer catchbasins.A DEP representative said the agency had sent out an inspector in December to examine the intersections the TimesLedger mentioned along Yellowstone Boulevard, but did not find any sinkholes. The spokeswoman said an inspector was to visit the area again Monday.On Tuesday morning there was still a sawhorse across a catchbasin at the corner of Kessel Street and Yellowstone Boulevard.The car-swallowing sinkhole was located in front of the CB 6 office near the intersection of Ingram Street and Yellowstone Boulevard close to a sewer catchbasin. CB 6 said the friction of water must have eroded the soil beneath the road, causing the asphalt to buckle and eventually cave in in an ever-widening circle that caught the front wheel of a passing car last month. The asphalt is dark in a large patch in front of the office, where a crew repaired the damaged surface.Reach reporter Alex Christodoulides by e-mail at achristodoulides@timesledger.com or by phone at 718-229-0300, Ext. 155.
