The city’s dismal pothole-repair efforts are so bad that a 23-year-old mechanic is raking in at least $2,200 a night setting up shop with a stack of replacement tires next to a crater in Brooklyn.
Javier Yat told The Post on Tuesday that he changes so many tires on a typical night working out of his van around Exit 9A on the Belt Parkway that he runs out of new wheels mid-shift.
“I carry about 10 tires in my van at all times, but when I park in that location specifically, I have to pay a runner to go back and forth to the shop for me and to pick up what I need,” he said.
“One man’s misfortune is another man’s blessing.’’
The wrench-wielding entrepreneur said that by day, he performs about four or five tire changes daily when running a local auto shop — but at night is when the real magic begins.
He gets in his van about 12:30 a.m. and drives to where the massive pothole — and hoards of customers — are waiting about a half-mile ahead of it.
“I think the pothole is approximately 60 square inches and 12 inches deep,” said Yat, who discovered the monster tire-popper about a year and a half ago when a customer called him in a pinch.
The mechanic said he does his best work between just after midnight and 10 a.m. on rainy or cold days — the perfect combination for a blown tire.
That’s when motorists are going faster because of less traffic, and it’s dark, so they don’t see the pothole, the Brooklyn man said.
“With daylight, the pothole is easier to see. At night, it’s harder to dodge,” Yat said.
Yat said he charges between $150 and $300 per tire depending on its size — changing about 15 to 20 each night he works.
The extra cash flow goes right back into purchasing more tires for his business to keep up with the high demand, he said.
The young mechanic from Guatemala said he began the lucrative venture simply because he saw a business opportunity staring him in the face.
He said city workers have done patchwork on the pothole over past months, but it only lasts still the next cold or ain spell.
Yat’s side gig surfaced the same day a city Department of Transportation official insisted the agency has enough staff to handle what has become a lasting scourge for Big Apple drivers everywhere.
“We have adequate staffing to address these conditions,’’ DOT First Deputy Commissioner Margaret Forgione assured City Council members during a budget hearing on transportation and infrastructure.
“We do not have a lack of staff in this area.”
Her boss, DOT Commissioner Mike Flynn, didn’t seem so sure.
“Filling potholes is, there’s a lot of, um, there’s a lot of, um, it’s dymanic right?’’ he told council members when pressed on the issue.
“It depends on the specific weather conditions of that winter. We can’t fill potholes when there’s snow on the ground or the ground is frozen.
“But the even bigger picture, potholes are kind of a symptom, and what we want to do is address the underlying problem,’’ he said.
He and Forgione both mentioned a city blitz this past weekend in which they said 90 crews repaired 7,000 potholes.
But as The Post recently exclusively reported, pothole complaints increased an alarming 33% in the first two months of this year when compared to the same period in 2025.
“If you have the right amount of staff, then why aren’t you fixing potholes in a timely manner?” transportation panel chair Shaun Abreu asked.
Either way, the situation is keeping mechanics busy.
“We have a guy that comes and takes the tires we’ve replaced. We’ve been keeping him busy for sure,” said Joe Acini, a mechanic who has worked more than 20 years worked at the Mobil service station on the corner of Dry Harbor and Woodhaven Boulevard in Queens.
Acini told The Post that he and his crew have changed 20 more tires per month since the winter set in.
Acini reports he worked on 66 tire jobs in December, 71 in January, and 64 in the short month of February.
“The worst was a guy with a Dodge Dart. He had a blown out tire, a damaged hub baring, and a bent rim. $1,400 on one wheel,” Acini said.
Potholes form when water seeps through pavement cracks and freezes, causing the liquid to expand and push the road surface outward. Rock salt used to melt ice on streets accelerates the process.
The city’s pothole crisis has already turned deadly. A 46-year-old man was killed earlier this month after his stand-up scooter struck a pothole in Ozone Park, Queens.
-Additional reporting by Haley Brown
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