It’s a known fact that there are quite a few flyer-removers in Park Slope. On Park Slope Parents this week members have been talking about one person in particular. But this has been going on for years by a number of different people.
It is my understanding that flyer-removers are sticklers for flyer-free lamp posts (a flyer-free Park Slope). These people go around "cleaning" lamp posts of stoop sale signs and the like.
The flyer removers mostly focus on Seventh Avenue. I think flyers have a longer lamp-life on Fifth Avenue. There are flyer-removers on Sixth Avenue as well but they don’t work as quickly.
Jackie Connor, the late great Park Sloper who used to sit on the steps of Old First Church (and did many positive things for the neighborhood behind the scenes) was a flyer-remover, I am told, because she thought flyers on lamp posts were ugly. She did it, like she did many things, out of civic pride and a deep concern for the neighborhood she loved. The corner of Carroll Street and Seventh Avenue is officially named "Jackie Connor’s Corner."
However, some flyer -removers are crazy.
The other day I saw a crazy looking man taking flyers off of lamp posts in the South Slope. I said to myself: Ah Ha, a flyer-remover. But he is just one of a few.
Over the years I’ve learned not to even bother putting flyers on lamp posts on Seventh Avenue because they will be removed within hours. It’s just not worth the trouble. These flyer-removers work very quickly.
I guess the flyer-removers have won.
It has just come to my attention that the Brooklyn Paper has this story, too. In fact, they had it first.
Like 19th-century London, a mysterious ripper is roaming through
Park Slope, committing what some believe is a crime almost as bad as
saucy Jack’s: he’s tearing down stoop sale, lost pet and house-cleaning
fliers.Unlike his historic counterpart, the Park Slope Ripper operates in
broad daylight. Of course, he has good reason to conduct his mission in
the open: it is illegal to hang fliers on public property like
lampposts.But that hasn’t ensured the Ripper’s popularity
Hero or villain? He’s a villain!,” said Heidi, who declined to give
her last name. “Those signs are put up by parents who want to get rid
of stuff or people having a stoop sale. They don’t mean any harm.”
jackie connor, to the best of my knowledge, only removed commercial flyers advertising businesses ,not those for recently lost pets or upcoming stoop sales.so, no r.k. dillon i don’t think she would have removed the memorial ribbons from her streetlight until they became an eyesore.
Keep those lampposts clean. It is illegal to dirty them up, you know. Then again, some yahoos think graffiti is art .. unless it’s on their front door.
You can hang up a flier in many neighborhood stores, the sainted co-op, Tea Lounge, Key Food, Associated, C-Town, etc. Advertise in Gersh’s birdcage liner. Go online.
But best of all … and after that famous flap … get a child to write stoop sale and lost cat information on the sidewalk – in chalk!
No one’s going to prosecute a child, eh?
We have a very officious flyer-remover in Cobble Hill. He lives on the little stretch of Bergen between Smith and Court (a very small man, I see him walking his spaniel when I come home in the evenings), and he ventures quite far afield to strip perfectly interesting flyers from poles: the last time I saw him doing it I actually asked him why – it was a Lost Kitty ad, quite fresh, and he was three blocks from his own home and very close to mine: I was feeling territorial. He was silent. I’m beginning to think I live in a Republican enclave.
While I agree that flyers can get overwhelming, I think some are a positive contribution to the community spirit of Park Slope – or any other neighborhood. I’ve connected “Lost” & “Found” pet people several times & I enjoy many of the creative stoop sale postings so long as people take them down afterwards. I loved the irony of ribbons & memorials to Jackie Connor that were hung on “her” streetlight after she died – wonder if she’d’ve removed those.