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Ihey Paved Bergen Street, But It Wasn't Smooth GoingBY IRENE VAN SLYKEI loooove New York. I never really realized how much until the City decided to pave my block.| On Wednesday, July 5, the City came to our block and paved the middle strip of the block. Being New Yorkers, some of my neighbors and 1 deposited ourselves on our stoops to watch the men work. It was really quite exciting. A big truck full of asphalt would deposit loads onto the street, a giant roller would go back and forth to level it and then water went over the asphalt to cool it off. The men would make sure that man holes were not covered with asphalt and that edges were smoothed at the junction of streets.Around 2:30 p.m., a man, possibly the foreman, came by and said that the next day the crew would be paving one side of the street where cars could not park because of the alternate side of the street hours and the next day the other side of the street would be paved, when cars could not park there. None of us owned the cars in question, but being New Yorkers we tried to tell the City how to do their job.We suggested he put up some %u2018no parking%u2019 signs on trees, since people from other blocks park on our block and vice-versa because of the varying hours alternate side of the street parking is allowed on each block. We also told him that there were two abandoned cars on theblock, one with a license plate and one without. Repeatedly, residents of the block had notified the city police and sanitation departments, but somehow no on had ever gotten around to towing them away.Even though the cars have been there for months, neither has been vandalized. Several times when men had approached the cars with toolboxes and milk crates, we had shooed them away. The foreman said that he would try to bring a tow truck. The next morning at 8 a.m. I looked out the window and a city tow truck arrived. The fbreman asked which cars were abandoned and then the tow truck driver broke into the car, released the brake and hooked up the car to the tow truck.A small crowd formed and we all reminisced about how we had shoveled the snow off the car in the winter and had shooed the car strippers away and what a shame that people abandon cars on our block etc. etc. The tow truck took off and we saw him go around the comer, stop on Bond Street and park the abandoned car there.A few minutes later, the tow truck parked on the block, the driver lay himself down on the front seat, put his legs through the open window, and went to sleep.The foreman was busy ringing door bells trying to identify the owners of the other cars parked on the block. Alternate side ofThe abandoned%u2014and returned%u2014car on Bergen Street.the street parking allows cars to be parked until 11 a.m. and at least an hour was wasted identifying owners and getting them out of bed to move their cars. When people complained that no notices were posted, the foreman said that notices had been posted (an untruth to say the least) but since it was a bad neighborhood the signs had been ripped down.Now that the reputation of our neighborhood was on the line, whatever differences had divided us on the block fell away. We all protested that no signs had been posted and that even if they had been ripped down at least one should have been left. It didn%u2019t matter: nobody listened to our indignation. Men started moving their equipment in place, driving the asphalt truck close to the curb, shaving branches off trees and bringing on screams from homeowners. The response from the truck came. %u201c Calm down Ladies, we%u2019re watching out.%u201dAt about 3 in the afternoon, the men had finished the job. They were sitting on the stoop, resting after a day%u2019s hard work. No more potholes; the street looked beautiful. And what do you know? 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