Three More Mysterious Cars Pulled From Brooklyn Garage Demolition
Brooklyn’s 92-year-old Auto Baby Sitters garage is making way for apartments—and forgotten classic cars are being dragged out. We have questions.
On September 1, we reported on the emptying of Brooklyn’s 92-year-old “Auto Baby Sitters” garage. After filing demolition permits in spring 2023, developers moved ahead last week with clearing the garage to make way for a 79-unit apartment building. Dusty classic cars—including a 1959 Cadillac, a Pontiac Fiero, and a Checker Marathon—piled up at the curb. But that was just the beginning.
New photos taken Thursday, Sept. 7 show more classics lining the curb at 827 Sterling Place, and the mystery just keeps getting weirder. There’s another Cadillac, this one a two-door mint green coupe with New York plates. Based on the tailfins and headlights, it appears to be a 1957 model. There’s also a 1970 Volkswagen Beetle in a sad state, and a ’70s white-with-woodgrain Jeep Wagoneer Limited.
All of the cars removed from the garage so far show some degree of dirt and mud coating, with the 1959 Cadillac removed last week and the Beetle getting the worst of it. It’s unclear whether this is a result of flooding (as some of you suggested in the comments on last week’s post), or merely the effects of dirty city air over time. Interestingly, the two-door Caddy, the Wagoneer, and the Checker do not appear to have the same level of mud coating, so it’s possible that they were stored in a different location within the garage, or had another type of protection. But that’s pure speculation at this point.
With classic cars continuing to trickle out of the now-defunct garage, we have more questions than answers. Who did they belong to? Where are they going? And, why were they left to rot for so long in the middle of the most expensive city in the U.S., where garage parking can set residents back upwards of $500 per month? We’ll continue reporting on any further developments at 827 Sterling. In the meantime, if you know anything about the story behind these cars, we’d love to hear from you.
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