POUGHKEEPSIE – The City of Poughkeepsie Financial Parking Deck, across the street from the MJN Convention Center was heavily damaged on Saturday night. Sometime between 6:00 p.m. and 8:00 p.m. on December 2, several windows were broken out of the stairwell on the southwest corner of the structure.
In addition to the large amount of broken glass, the street racers returned with their cars to continue burning up the relatively new million-dollar surface on the top level of the deck. The cars arrived in groups of four or five every few minutes and raced to the top deck, where they met with other groups and were observed doing lengthy burnouts, which caused the rubberized road surface to melt in spots, rendering it useless.
On more than one occasion, as cars were racing out of the exit, pedestrians returning from playing hockey at the McCann Ice Arena were forced to jump out of the way of the speeding cars. The cars that frightened the pedestrians would exit the lot, race around Columbus Drive, and return for another lap to the top of the parking deck.
Some of the drivers of the cars that sounded like weedwhackers were having difficulty reading the signs in the garage and repeatedly exiting through the entrance, causing several near misses with legitimate motorists who were attempting to enter the parking deck.
The City of Poughkeepsie police responded to the garage to document the broken windows. Working alone due to an ongoing manpower crisis, the officer was unable to corral the racers. Two members of the city’s parking department were called in on overtime to clean the substantial amount of broken glass.
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