Dozens of families are illegally living in dilapidated trailers in the shadow of CitiField — draining off water from fire hydrants and swiping electricity while running black-market auto-repair shops.
The unsightly gypsy-like encampment underneath the Whitestone Expressway, populated largely by Spanish-speaking migrants, has become a nightmare for residents and merchants along a stretch of Queens in the shadow of the New York Mets home field — and yet the city has done nothing, locals told The Post.
“We gave up calling the police,” said Luke Huwang, manager of Empire State Autobody on Northern Boulevard, to The Post on Monday. “The police don’t touch them. The police will take their customers cars and impound them, but they leave the motorhomes and all these people here.
“They drink a lot,” Huwang said of the illicit street dwellers.
“And they do the barbecue when the Mets play. They pull the electricity from the light poles and from above, you know, the underside of the roadway.”
Neighborhood regulars said the intruders tap into fire hydrants to bathe and run illegal car washes, auto body and auto repair shops — mostly overnight to avoid harassment from the NYPD.
They live in nearly two dozen rundown RVs, motor homes and campers between 126th Place and 127th Place along Northern Boulevard — with only one of the vehicles seen with a legal license plate.
“The whole area is bad,” said a man who claimed he lived in an RV in Marina Park for eight months. “Real dangerous. Especially at night, real dangerous. Who the f–k is calling the cops?
“They settle things with machetes around here,” he said. “It’s more than a year. It’s not quite two years yet, but it’s more than a year since it started here.”
Residents of the unsightly community declined to comment to The Post, most of them claiming they did not speak English as they roamed the area and slipped into a local liquor store.
Neighbors said the encampment grew out of a row of auto shops and apartments that were displaced by the development of the new $780 million soccer stadium next to Citi Field — with some taking the money from their buyout to move to The Bronx, but others moving under the expressway overpass.
The new field, set to open next year, will be the new home of New York City FC soccer team.
At first there were about 10 campers, but the number grew to nearly 100 over the past year, locals said.
Cops have raided the black-market shops and towed away their customers’ vehicles, but the savvy illegal business owners now simply wait until night to open for business, operating without police scrutiny.
“They started living here full-time little over a year ago,” said Brian Jung, who owns Ryan Auto Inc., a legal shop, on Northern Boulevard. “You can see here they’re opening up the base of the electrical poles and they’re running wires over to do their work and to live in those motorhomes.
“In the summertime, yeah, they do they open up all the fire hydrants,” Jung said.
“They open them up, and they just leave them all open, and they take showers. Yeah, it’s it’s kind of wild. It’s been growing but I don’t know how many more they could fit. I guess they could squeeze in a few more.”
The NYPD did not respond to a Post request for comment.
Additional reporting by Amanda Woods