City to Restore Lights on Forest Hills Footbridge

The city will replace the lights on an unlit footbridge that has caused concern for some Forest Hills residents, Community Board 6’s district manager said.

The footbridge, located at Burns Street and Austin Street at 67th Avenue, had been left without lights for more than a month, causing local residents to avoid crossing it at night, said Frank Gulluscio, CB 6’s district manager.

“Supposedly, Con Ed has restored the lights they were responsible for and we are waiting on the DOT to restore what they are responsible for,” Gulluscio said.

A Con Ed spokesman said the utility deemed that its equipment is working properly at the site and that the DOT would be responsible for restoring the lights on the bridge.

No criminal activity or suspicious incidents have been reported on the footbridge since the lights went out, but Gulluscio said that the community wanted the problem to be resolved as quickly as possible.

“It’s taken a little longer than we liked,” he said of the restoration of the lights on the footbridge, which connects two residential areas of the community. “There was some miscommunication involved in trying to track down who the lights belonged to. We’ve been staying on it, trying to get it fixed.”