There’s something fishy about this Brooklyn block.
A puddle from a leaking hydrant has been turned into a public aquarium in Bedford-Stuyvesant, with dozens of goldfish swimming in an inch and a half of water at the bottom of a tree well — and a group of men standing guard.
“It’s peaceful and tranquil, and that’s the whole point,” said Je-Quan Irving, a driver for AAA, of the bizarre beautification effort. “We took it upon ourselves to spruce up this little area.”
Irving, 47, and others decided to buy the 30 or so feeder goldfish about a week ago, he said.
The tiny orange and black fish could be seen Thursday swimming with cigarette butts, rusty beer bottle caps, AAA batteries, plastic costume pearls, rocks, pistachio shells, glass shards, the eraser end of a broken pencil, and lip gloss in a squeeze bottle.
The group of four men — friends who live in the neighborhood — plan to add snails and lights as well as a filtration system, he said.
In the fall, they’ll aim to remove the fish and hand them out to neighborhood children, he said. In the spring, they’ll introduce new fish back to the puddle on Hancock Street near Tompkins Avenue, which they plan on widening.
“It’s a work in progress,” he said, beaming.
Irving, who stands guard over the fish with the other men, set up security cameras to monitor the puddle.
“People try to steal them,” he said.
“Come talk to us. People think we’re doing harmful things to the fish. No, we feed them three times a day. We’re doing research on portable filters, because we want to appeal to the masses. We don’t want anyone thinking we’re doing any harm or foul here.”
But at least one animal advocate was flipping over the goldfish’s grim conditions.
Records from 311 show at least three complaints have been filed about the puddle within the last week.
On social media, neighborhood residents have posted footage of the fish, calling on people to contact 311 to gripe about the leaking hydrant.
“He thinks of this as some sort of community beautification project, which I could totally get behind but just not like this,” the person behind the online campaign told The Post.
The concerned citizen, who uses the Reddit handle Plantsnotpants, refused to give their name.
“I tried to tell him these aren’t humane conditions and offered him a five-gallon tank to house them in until he could get a proper habitat but he wasn’t interested,” the critic said, claiming they’ve taken 36 of the fish, under cover of night.
“He’ll undoubtedly tell you that we are ‘stealing’ his fish but if he just gets them adequate housing and a sustainable water source — not a leaking fire hydrant — we wouldn’t have to.”
“Ultimately I find the whole situation tragic,” the person added. “This guy and I have the same dream, to one day have a fish pond and to make our community better. Still, this is animal abuse happening openly on the street in the neighborhood I live in. It’s hard to ignore or excuse.”
While goldfish are resilient, they’re not bettas, which live in muddy puddles in Southeast Asia. Goldfish need treated, clean water, that’s frequently changed in order to survive.
The city’s Department of Environmental Protection was first made aware of the impromptu pond on Thursday, and DEP crews have been out to shut the hydrant “several times now,” a source explained, adding the hydrant is opened again after they leave.
The men behind the sidewalk pond have also been asked to remove the fish, with DEP workers informing them “it’s not a suitable or safe location for them,” the DEP official said.
“It’s imperative that our DEP operations team be allowed to fix the hydrant,” said Beth DeFalco, the DEP’s Deputy Commissioner for Public Affairs and Communications. “There are real safety concerns with damaged or leaking hydrants; it can impact the availability of water for fire emergencies, and it can impact water pressure and cause supply issues for the neighborhood. We love goldfish also, but we know there is a better home for them than on a sidewalk.”
