By Gus Saltonstall
The white Rolls Royce is impossible to miss.
For more than two weeks, the luxury car has sat in front of a building on West 66th Street, between Columbus and Central Park West. The vehicle is made more noticeable by its position at the front of a line of hefty, black Escalades.
For as long as the Rolls Royce has been on the Upper West Side block, its tail of five to eight black Escalades has been a constant companion, according to an eyewitness and West Side Rag’s own observations.
“There has been an enormous number of black Escalades illegally parked in a line outside of the new Extell supertall across from the construction pit that was once the old ABC building,” a tipster, who wished to remain anonymous, wrote in an email to West Side Rag on Monday. “Directly in front of the building is often parked a Rolls Royce. Flashy to say the least.”
“This clogs up an already clogged 66th Street, which gets lots of traffic coming through the 65th Street transverse,” they added. “In particular, I worry that this poses an issue for ambulances that get stuck when cars can’t pull aside to let them pass. And of course, it seems to suggest the ever northward/uptown creep of billionaire’s row onto the UWS.”
All of the cars appear to be parked illegally, as noted by a spokesperson from the New York City Department of Transportation.
The cars are parked on the south side of West 66th Street, between Columbus and Central Park West, within a “No Parking Anytime” zone and a “Truck Loading Zone,” which is meant exclusively for commercial and service vehicles actively loading or unloading goods, a DOT spokesperson explained.
WSR has walked by the cars multiple times over the last few days at different times, and has never observed a ticket on any of the cars, and there have always been at least five parked cars in the line. The Rolls Royce has been there all but one time; when we walked by the building on Wednesday night, multiple black Escalades were still there.
NYPD did not respond to the Rag’s request for more information.
The caravan of cars shrinks the street on West 66th Street, between Columbus and Central Park West, that is already narrower due to construction happening on the north side of the street related to 77-80 West 66th Street, which Extell Development is also behind and will be the tallest building in the neighborhood.
Buses travel down West 66th Street after exiting the 65th Street Transverse in Central Park.
Each time the Rag has visited the cavalcade of cars, there is another element impossible to miss.
The cars are full of men. Large men. The vehicles are parked, unmoving, but the majority almost always have at least one person inside. In many cases, more than one.
This element was also spotted by someone who posted on the Upper West Side Reddit page about the situation.
“I walk past this tall new building all the time, and lately I’ve noticed a Rolls-Royce parked out front, surrounded by about eight black Escalades,” the poster wrote. “There are always people who look like bodyguards standing around the entrance and the cars.”
The post generated online speculation over who the fleet of cars are connected to, but WSR was not able to confirm the theories.
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