{"id":195157,"date":"2026-04-13T10:04:30","date_gmt":"2026-04-13T10:04:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/195157\/"},"modified":"2026-04-13T10:04:30","modified_gmt":"2026-04-13T10:04:30","slug":"staten-island-widow-devastated-after-nyc-tows-and-destroys-one-of-a-kind-memorial-truck-to-late-husband","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/195157\/","title":{"rendered":"Staten Island widow devastated after NYC tows and destroys one-of-a-kind memorial truck to late husband"},"content":{"rendered":"

STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. \u2014 A Staten Island woman says the city acted \u201ccruelly\u201d when city Sanitation Department workers towed and scrapped a bright green custom truck \u2014 a memorial to her late husband \u2014 that had stood for years outside his Brooklyn auto shop.<\/p>\n

Maria Stylianou, a Ward Hill resident who runs New Millennium Motors in Gowanus, Brooklyn, said the flower-decorated \u201cmini monster\u201d truck was a tribute to her husband, Andreas Stylianou, a beloved longtime mechanic who was killed in 2019 after being struck by moving vehicles outside the business.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was given no warning. They said they tagged it and six hours later they towed it,\u201d Stylianou told Staten Island Advance\/SILive.com. \u201cIt was towed at 5:24 a.m. Wednesday, April 1, which means it was tagged at 11 p.m. No one was there at 11 p.m., and the shop opens at 8 a.m. They didn\u2019t give us a chance.\u201d<\/p>\n

Stylianou said a sanitation spokesperson told her the truck was tagged and removed in accordance with city rules before being taken to a recycling vendor.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would have brought it inside the shop if I was warned,\u201d she said. \u201cThey said they went by the book. Book or not, the way it was handled was cruel.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"(CourtesyStaten Island resident Maria Stylianou is outraged after sanitation workers towed and scrapped a bright green custom truck that had long served as a memorial to her late husband outside his Brooklyn auto shop. (Courtesy Maria Stylianou)(Courtesy Maria Stylianou)<\/p>\n

The last text she received from the city read: \u201cHello. The car was processed and recycled by NYC Auto Recycling. They\u2019re located at 150-35 Liberty Ave., Jamaica, N.Y.\u201d<\/p>\n

Stylianou said the vehicle was removed because it lacked both a license plate and a vehicle identification number, which are required for vehicles parked on public streets.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis truck was parked on the street with no VIN and no license plate, which is not allowed in any circumstance,\u201d said Vincent Gragnani, a DSNY spokesperson. \u201cWe tagged the vehicle and it was removed six hours later, in accordance with the law, and taken to one of our vendors, NYC Auto Recycling. Without a plate or a VIN, there was no way for the city to contact the owner.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gragnani said the removal was part of a routine derelict-vehicle operation, which removes thousands of unregistered or abandoned vehicles from city streets each year, often in response to community complaints.<\/p>\n

Stylianou said the truck had been parked outside the shop since at least 2019 without issue and was moved only earlier this year to make way for utility work.<\/p>\n

\u201cI never expected it would be subject to enforcement,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\"(CourtesyStaten Island resident Maria Stylianou is pictured with her late husband, Andreas, on vacation. After his death in 2019, a bright green custom truck served as a memorial to him outside his Brooklyn auto shop. (Courtesy Maria Stylianou)(Courtesy Maria Stylianou)A community fixture<\/p>\n

Stylianou said the truck had become a beloved fixture in the neighborhood, drawing steady attention from passersby.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wish you knew how much the community loved this car,\u201d she said. \u201cPeople stopped to take pictures with it all day long.\u201d<\/p>\n

The truck was decorated year-round for holidays \u2014 a witch\u2019s hat for Halloween, flowers in the spring and a Santa hat during the Christmas season.<\/p>\n

\u201cI started decorating it for fun because everybody loved it,\u201d she said. \u201cIt became my mascot, my logo. People would come into the shop just to ask about the story behind it.\u201d <\/p>\n

\"(CourtesyStaten Island resident Maria Stylianou is outraged after sanitation workers towed and scrapped a bright green custom truck that had long served as a memorial to her late husband outside his Brooklyn auto shop. (Courtesy Maria Stylianou)(Courtesy Maria Stylianou)A love for mini vehicles<\/p>\n

Stylianou said the truck\u2019s origins were tied to her husband\u2019s longtime passion for mini vehicles.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy husband\u2019s first car was a Mini,\u201d she said. \u201cHe brought one from overseas and restored it, and he somehow attracted all the Mini owners in the area.\u201d<\/p>\n

The green Mini used for the project belonged to a customer, she said. Stylianou\u2019s husband later mounted it onto an SUV frame, creating what became known around the neighborhood as the \u201cmonster mini.\u201d<\/p>\n

Neighbors said the customized vehicle became part of the area\u2019s identity. It was one of many creative projects Andreas Stylianou took on during his decades in the auto business after immigrating from Cyprus.<\/p>\n

After his death, the street outside the shop was co-named in his honor.<\/p>\n

For Stylianou, the loss of the truck remains deeply personal.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wanted to fix it up and keep it going,\u201d she said. \u201cIt was his car. You can\u2019t replace something like that.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"(CourtesyThe “Mini monster truck” was towed on April 1, with no warning during regular busniess hours, after Maria Stylianou had moved the car around the corner to make room for National Grid repairs. (Courtesy Maria Stylianou)(Courtesy Maria Stylianou)\"(CourtesyThe “Mini monster truck” was towed on April 1, with no warning during regular busniess hours, after Maria Stylianou had moved the car around the corner to make room for National Grid repairs. (Courtesy Maria Stylianou)(Courtesy Maria Stylianou)\"(CourtesyStaten Island resident Maria Stylianou is outraged after sanitation workers towed and scrapped a bright green custom truck that had long served as a memorial to her late husband outside his Brooklyn auto shop. (Courtesy Maria Stylianou)(Courtesy Maria Stylianou)\"(CourtesyThe late Andreas Stylianou is pictured with his three daughters, Helena, left, Christina and Andrea. His wife, Maria Stylianou, is outraged after sanitation workers towed and scrapped a bright green custom truck that had long served as his memorial outside his Brooklyn auto shop. (Courtesy Maria Stylianou)(Courtesy Maria Stylianou)\"(CourtesyStaten Island resident Maria Stylianou, right, pictured with two of her daughters, is outraged after sanitation workers towed and scrapped a bright green custom truck outside her late husabnd’s Brooklyn auto shop. (Courtesy Maria Stylianou)(Courtesy Maria Stylianou)\"(CourtesyStylianou explained the car\u2019s origins: \u201cMy husband Andreas\u2019s first car was a Mini \u2014 he brought one from overseas and restored it. The green Mini belonged to one of his customers who owns a few, and my husband had an SUV frame and decided to make a monster Mini.\u201d (Courtesy Maria Stylianou)(Courtesy Maria Stylianou)\"(CourtesyStaten Island resident Maria Stylianou is outraged after sanitation workers towed and scrapped a bright green custom truck that had long served as a memorial to her late husband outside his Brooklyn auto shop. (Courtesy Maria Stylianou)(Courtesy Maria Stylianou)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. \u2014 A Staten Island woman says the city acted \u201ccruelly\u201d when city Sanitation Department workers…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":195158,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[128,9,24,63,129,131,130],"class_list":{"0":"post-195157","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-the-bronx","8":"tag-bronx","9":"tag-new-york","10":"tag-new-york-city","11":"tag-nyc","12":"tag-the-bronx","13":"tag-the-bronx-headlines","14":"tag-the-bronx-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/195157","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=195157"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/195157\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/195158"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=195157"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=195157"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=195157"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}