By Sadef Ali Kully
It was a dramatic scene right out of a movie last week. Rudy, the homeless man living on the closed Merrick Flea Market property in Laurelton, blocked the trucks and a team that had come to clean up and lock the property after a fire in August.
After months of lobbying support to have the property secured and cleared, members of Federated Blocks of Laurelton had finally gotten something done to make the neighborhood eyesore safer. “I am glad they are cleaning up the place,” Dwight Johnson, president of the Federated Blocks of Laurelton, said. “This place had become a danger for the community.”
In August, a small fire broke out inside the flea market warehouse, which exposed the dump site the property had become. It was littered with old furniture, construction trash and cars for sale. Rudy would sweep up when he could.
“I am not homeless. My brother lives around the corner,” said Rudy, which is his nickname. “I just like being outdoors during the summer. This is my summertime.”
Rudy had created a makeshift living room with an old red leather couch and bedroom with a dresser out of other people’s trash — right in the middle of the open lot. In the summer he would put on his sunglasses while blasting R&B music from his radio.
“Everyone is one of God’s creatures. I choose not to go or to go,” he said. “I gotta sister down South—I don’t know Down South. I lived in this neighborhood for 40 years.”
City Councilman Donovan Richards (D-Laurelton), who was at the Oct. 9 cleanup, said his office and the city Department of Homeless Services tried to help Rudy. “We tried to give him everything, but he refused every help.”
The owner of the property, Myron Berman, said, “It is a problem beyond us, but we are doing what we can. The fence will be locked by Oct. 13. Once the fence is up—it will become a police matter.”
Berman said his company is in the middle of negotiating the development of the property and expects construction to begin next year.
“There is no one more important than you—you live here and this is your community,” Berman told the residents standing to watch the clearing of the site.
The fire, which was the catalyst for the community, was not Rudy’s fault, he said.
“I went to Key Food that night. I sleep in the Laundromat and keep it safe ‘cause they have TV. I think there were some kids here who started some s—,” he said.
Rudy, who kept his sneakers neatly on a shelf, his T-shirts on hangers off a hook and his shampoo and lotions on top of a bureau in his makeshift outdor bedroom, said he used to sweep up the place. too,
“Now they want me to go,” he said as he started to pack his grocery cart with his belongings.
Despite Rudy’s claims, residents did not buy it.
“I have seen bonfires here during the winter,” Johnston said. “It wasn’t safe for anyone.” Johnston said they wanted to see perhaps a sit-down restaurant, a training gym or a small business like a law office.
In the past, Rudy said he had gone to rehab for alcoholics but this time he was planning to go upstate to a veterans home since he had been a peacetime officer.
Reach Reporter Sadef Ali Kully by e-mail at skull
