04/02/2026
There is a pothole on the Belt Parkway near Exit 9A in Brooklyn, New York that the city has been putting a band aid on for months. They patch it. The rain comes. It reopens. They patch it again. It reopens again.
For most drivers it is a nightmare. A tire-swallowing crater lurking in the dark, invisible at night, deep enough to destroy a tire instantly and leave you stranded on the side of a highway at 2am wondering what just happened to your car.
For 23-year-old Javier Yat, it is a business partner.
Javier is the owner of a Brooklyn based mobile repair operation he built from the ground up with his older brother Emilio. The two grew up in Guatemala, learned the trade from their father, and came to America to build something. Two years ago they started with just a van. Eight months ago they opened a physical shop.
And somewhere along the way Javier discovered the pothole.
Every night around 12:30am he loads his van with up to ten tires and drives to Exit 9A. He parks. He waits. And one by one the victims arrive, drivers who hit the crater in the dark, heard that horrible sound, and are now desperately Googling "tire guy near me" on the side of the highway.
Javier shows up, fixes the tire, and charges between $150 and $300 depending on the size. On a good night he changes 15 to 25 tires. On a good night he makes $2,200. He stays until 10am.
When he runs out of tires mid-shift he calls Emilio to bring more from the shop.
The single pothole generates roughly 80 customers a year for his business. Every dollar goes back into buying more inventory so he is ready for the next night.
When reporters asked the New York City Department of Transportation about the pothole and the mechanic profiting from their failure to fix it, the city responded with a straight face.
"We have adequate staffing to address these conditions," they said.
Javier was back at Exit 9A that same night.