00:00There is a pothole on the Belt Parkway near exit 9A in Brooklyn, New York, that the city has been
00:06putting a band-aid on for months.
00:07They patch it. The rain comes. It reopens. They patch it again. It reopens again.
00:15For most drivers, it is a nightmare. A tire-swallowing crater lurking in the dark, invisible at night,
00:22deep enough to destroy a tire instantly and leave you stranded on the side of a highway at 2 a
00:27.m.,
00:28wondering what just happened to your car for a 23-year-old Javier, yeah?
00:33It is a business partner. Javier is the owner of a Brooklyn-based mobile repair operation he built from the
00:40ground up with his older brother, Amir.
00:42The two grew up in Guatemala, learned the trade from their father, and came to America to build something.
00:48Two years ago, they started with just a van. Eight months ago, they opened a physical shop.
00:54And somewhere along the way, Javier discovered the pothole dot every night around 12 Trinta Am.
01:00He loads his van with up to ten tires and drives to exit 9A. He parks. He waits. And one
01:07by one, the victims arrive.
01:09Drivers who hit the crater in the dark heard that horrible sound and are now desperately googling tire guy near
01:16me on the side of the highway.
01:17Javier shows up, fixes the tire, and charges between $150 and $300 depending on the size.
01:25On a good night, he changes 15 to 25 tires. On a good night, he makes $2,200.
01:32He stays until 10 a.m. When he runs out of tires, mid-shift he calls Emilio to bring more
01:39from the shop.
01:40The single pothole generates roughly 80 customers a year for his business.
01:45Every dollar goes back into buying more. Inventory.
01:48So he is ready for the next night.
01:51When reporters asked the New York City Department of Transportation about the pothole and the mechanic profiting from their failure
01:59to fix it,
02:00the city responded with a straight face.
02:02We have adequate staffing to address these conditions, they said.
02:05Javier was back at exit 9A, that same night.
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