UPPER WEST SIDE — West 82nd Street has taken a beating this summer.
A sinkhole took a giant 100 square-foot bite out of the street on Wednesday, just two weeks after a water main break flooded the same block.
It also comes just days after a water main break created a massive hole in a Harlem street, leaving thousands of people without gas.
City crews responded to an emergency call about the hole in West 82nd Street between Columbus Avenue and Central Park West at about 11 a.m., said Department of Environmental Protection spokeswoman Mercedes Padilla.
The agency conducted tests to determine the cause of the 10-foot-by-10-foot crater, Padilla said. While police blocked the street to cars, a team of DEP and Department of Transportation workers with a backhoe, shovels and sledgehammers broke through the asphalt to get a better look at the damage.
Locals had been sounding the alarm about the cave-in since at least Monday, Aug. 15 according to 311 records.
Resident Rob Zand said he first noticed the gaping hole the morning before, snapping a photo that was posted on neighborhood blog My Upper West on Sunday.
DEP workers ruled out the sewer as the source of the problem and tested water mains for leaks, Padilla said. Though it was too early to be sure, the street collapse could be linked to the heavy rainfall on Saturday night, Padilla said.
Just 25 feet east of the sinkhole a water main broke on July 30, she said.
"This seems to happen every year," said Kris Fuksman, 29, of the problems on his block. "I guess the pipes are just old and it's too hard of a project for the city to get underground and fix it."
Fuksman said residents in his building nearby didn't have water for more than day after the recent water main break. He said several of his neighbors had called 311 to complain about the sinkhole.
Water main breaks and sinkholes aren't the only problems plaguing West 82nd Street. The street is one of 11 roads on the Upper West Side that the Department of Transportation is repaving because of extensive street damage and potholes.
A spokesman for City Councilwoman Gale Brewer, who represents the Upper West Side, said Brewer would follow up with DOT and DEP about the sinkhole.
"The residents on the block are concerned with the number of issues this street has had," said Brewer's Director of Constituent Services Jesse Bodine.
