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The Backwards Wheelchair Lady, a well-known Bensonhurst character, has been locally famous for decades, but is virtually unknown to anyone outside the neighborhood. Her signature move is to scoot backwards, at quite high rates of speed, at all hours of the day or night. Regardless of the weather, she dons a raincoat poncho (most often yellow) and rain hat. Her usual scooting grounds are on 86th Street between 19th Ave. and Bay Parkway. But the Backwards Wheelchair Lady has been spotted as far away as 4th Avenue.
Nobody knows if she is really disabled, and honestly, a lot of people actually doubt that she is, since she pushes off with her legs, with a decent amount of force, to propel herself backwards. She travels light, so hopefully she’s got a home, or at least a place where she keeps her stuff, but that much we don’t know. A lot of times, she’ll have a new bunch of flowers with her in her chair (sometimes plastic, it seems), or she’ll have bags from shops on her route.
Some say she’s in her fifties, yet she has been scooting around since at least the 1990s, or possibly even as far back as the 1970s. Bensonhurst people: when was the first time you saw Backwards Wheelchair Lady?
-photo via The Danja Zone.
i have grown up to this lady calling her a liar and getting told to go to hell .. lol …
Why did you call her a liar?
she happens to be very nice, though i do believe she is a liar. she once was seen running after a boy who knocked over her wheel chair and ran away. I was told this i did not witness this myself, but have had many a conversation with her and have seen her throughout my 20 somewhat years living here in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn.
I once saw her have a fight with a bus driver, prompting her to park her wheel chair in front of the bus, through a cup of coffee at the bus and then stand up and scream through the windshield at the driver. This happened on 95 street and 4 avenue, proving 2 things…she can walk and she does in fact travel to 4th avenue!
I use to see her all the time since 1990 when I would take the B1 from Bay Parkway and 86th to Xaverian my freshman year. I saw her get out and push her chair once and laughed but for as long as I can remember she has been around along with the radio guy by the train station.
My husband just said that when he worked at Milk n stuff back in 93, she was caught shoplifting…and yes she does walk, and she sleeps in bank vestibules!
That is true, I have seen her sleeping by the bank on 20th Avenue.
She also sleeps in the 18th ave library. About 10 years ago, you could find her in the library almost everyday.
Her names “the Faker”.
i have seen once downtown bkln flatbush atlantic
she is the faker i have been calling her that for over twenty years now my 10 yr old does it shes a neighborhood icon
I saw her in Times Square today. Looks like she is moving on up?
Back in the late 90s i worked at the PR Grand Department Store (RIP) on 86th street, she would come in all the time and make me fix the tubing of her chair or staple the upholstery and do various wheelchair maintenance for her. Over the course of a year or so she became somewhat friendly with me to the point where she opened up and told me her story: Back in the late 70s she went in for a “routine” arthroscopic knee surgery. Somehow, the doctor botched the job and she ended up suing him for malpractice and won. She never told me how much she got but needless to say it was enough for her to live “comfortably” without having to work. She became homeless BY CHOICE in the 80s because, in her words, “i don’t believe in paying rent”. She can indeed walk but she does so with a severe limp due to her botched surgery. She has children and according to her they’ve begged her for years to not live the way she does but she insists on it. She does sleep in bank vestibules as someone here mentioned as well as some train stations. Legend has it that she keeps her money on her person at all times. I wouldn’t necessarily call her a fake since she does have a bum leg (pun intended) but she is certainly not poor nor unfortunate. She’s also tough as hell (many have tried to rob her throughout the years) and truly is a local south Brooklyn legend. She also batshit crazy and does not liked being photographed (though I’ve managed to take a couple of pics of her).
forgot to mention, her name is Loraine