When the head of the Department of Transportation can’t find her car in New York City, what hope do they rest of us have?
DOT Commissioner Polly Trottenberg wound up as confused and frustrated as any New Yorker on Thursday when her car mysteriously vanished from a street in her Park Slope, Brooklyn neighborhood.
Trottenberg’s husband had left the “beat-up,” bumper-sticker-covered Honda Civic parked on St. Johns Place near Sixth Avenue a few days earlier. But when she went to move it Thursday morning to comply with alternate-side parking, she couldn’t find it.
Being a true Brownstone Brooklynite, the city roads boss at first assumed the hybrid had been towed to make way for the Showtime TV series “Billions,” which was filming in the area.
She even blamed the show — which stars Paul Giamatti as a ruthless US attorney — when recounting her missing-car adventure to a Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce breakfast event Thursday morning.
“They’re shooting in our neighborhood, this show ‘Billions,’ ” Trottenberg told the crowd, according to Politico. “Somehow, the car has disappeared.
“I’m calling Paul Giamatti and making him come give it back,” she added.
The retrieval of the vehicle seemed close at hand after she called the NYPD and was told it was moved to a spot on Lincoln Place, several blocks from her home.
Unfortunately, the Honda wasn’t there and now no one knows where it is, sources said.
It turned out the TV producers were not the culprit. Sources both at the production company and the city confirmed that show staffers did not relocate Trottenberg’s car — or anyone else’s.
“The commissioner was mistaken,” said a source close to the production. “We didn’t tow anybody.”
At the business breakfast meeting, the commissioner — the head of all things road-related in New York — was reduced to begging the public to help find her car. “So listen, it’s a beat-up Honda Civic hybrid. It’s got a bunch of old political bumper stickers that are kind of falling off,” said Trottenberg, according to Politico.
“If you see it, call me, OK? Because I don’t know where the hell my car is.”
DOT officials said that Trottenberg was “joking” when she blamed “Billions” for towing her missing car — and last night, she went on NY1 and said she wasn’t sure what happened to the car but she isn’t worried about finding it.
“I promise you,” she said. “In the next couple of days, we will find the car.”