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When city plows failed to arrive yet again, neighbors on one block brought out their shovels. One neighbor reports.
There are ten houses on Richmond Avenue in Westville, the little deadend street the city can’t find.
Despite City declarations that every street was cleared after the most recent major snow storm, not a single plow touched Richmond Avenue over the last three snow storms. Neighbors called the Emergency Operations Center numerous times, concerned particularly about elderly residents on the block in need of regular medical attention.
Finally, after two without sign of a plow following the last big storm, a team of neighbors armed themselves with shovels and dug a passable lane down the block. The hardy unpaid snow removal crew included Richmond Avenue residents Chris Kristen, Tim Kane, Dean Peckham, Ruth Drews, Bruce Larkin, and 5‑year-old Charlie Wortman.
They heaped the snow along the sides of the narrow lane, leaving piles more than five feet high.
Charlie’s mother Jodi Cohen says, “There’s a nice community spirit here coupled with spitting anger at the city for ignoring us and our complaints consistently. We may be a tertiary road, but we have to get to work and emergency vehicles need a means of access here, too. There’s a long history of the city pretending we just don’t exist.”
