BHB and its readers discovered Captain Cleanup, the Brooklyn Heights good samaritan known for painting and freshening up area mail boxes, fire boxes, fire hydrants and other objects, last year. As a matter of fact, he made the BHB Ten for 2013.
The Brooklyn Eagle profiles him today giving him the nom de bird, “Spencer Allen” (which btw is no CAPTAIN CLEANUP):
Allen’s work is bold when its repercussions are considered: Federal law states that vandalizing or defacing mailboxes is a crime punishable by fines up to $250,000, or by imprisonment for up to three years for each act of vandalism. But, in Allen’s view, it’s a mission to step in where the U.S. Postal Service has been unresponsive. Increasingly peeved by the incongruence of “tagged” (aka graffitied) mailboxes in an otherwise well-kept neighborhood, Allen woke up one morning in 2013 and decided to quell his vexation.
“This is absolutely ridiculous and I’m going to paint the thing because I’m tired of looking at it,” he recalls thinking of a green mailbox across the street from his apartment building.
One ebullient neighbor approached as he worked and said that for eight years she’d been trying to contact the responsible government agency to get the box repainted. Needless to say, she was ecstatic that Allen had assigned himself the task.
Photo: A USPS official paints over the Captain’s work last year.
