The squeegee men are back — and they’re rubbing drivers the wrong way.
The dreaded street hustlers — who were the scourge of the Big Apple in the 1980s and ’90s — have set up shop on Ninth Avenue between West 39th and 40th streets, where they wait for red lights to stop traffic and then pounce on their unlucky marks, The Post has learned.
“I see them almost every day,” said one local who’s seen the new squeegee influx firsthand. “I don’t go out there. When I’m done, I go straight to the subway, I don’t look at them.”
The witness said that after they “clean” a car, they get hostile if the driver doesn’t want to pay up for their unwanted service.
“I don’t know if they have a short temper, or if it’s the heat,” the person continued. “I can see them getting aggressive if you don’t give them money — they are not like most chill people.
“But I’ve seen them flip out sometimes, arguing with each other. They are not 100% good every day.”
The Post spotted one black Toyota SUV being targeted by a squeegee-wielding shyster at a Hell’s Kitchen intersection. One area worker told us it was a common sight these days.
“I do see people not give them money sometimes, and they get aggressive,” Tony West, a housekeeper at a nearby hotel, told The Post. “I hear like loud talking like, ‘Help us out!’
“I wish somebody would give them a broom or something,” West continued. “There is a lot to be cleaned up around here. They would be way less of a bother. I don’t think it would bother anyone if they are sweeping.”
The squeegee guys have a long, torrid history in New York City, where they became the face of ex-Mayor Rudy Giuliani’s quality-of-life crackdown three decades ago.
The teams are smaller nowadays, with just a couple of window-washers instead of the well-organized crews of a half-dozen that took to the streets in years past. But it still drives locals and commuters crazy.
“I don’t interact with them,” one nearby worker said. “I don’t like them out there. The street should be [clear].”
Workers said the squeegee men normally flock to the area in the early morning, then again in the afternoons, when they hold up traffic as they ply their irritating trade.
It’s not the first time these relics of New York’s shadowy past have crawled back into the light of day — two summers ago, the notorious keepers of spotless windshields emerged at the same intersection.
“Where are the cops?” a worried New Jersey driver said in 2022, just moments after a squeegee man had suddenly approached her car. “That was like a shakedown! How is this OK? He just kept saying, ‘I know you got some money! I know you got some money!’”
During his campaign, Mayor Eric Adams revealed he was once a squeegee man — and vowed to get the guys off the streets without police intervention.
“I’m going to go there, number one, with mental health professionals, because some of them may be dealing with mental health crises, and also job training opportunities,” he said.
Neither City Hall nor the NYPD responded to requests for comment Wednesday.
