'Everybody Loved Larry.' Neighbors Mourn a Car Washer on Warren St.

Larry Powell, who died on July 25 of a Covid-19 related illness, and the Tribeca parking lot where he washed cars and was a neighborhood fixture for 25 years. Photos: Powell/courtesy of Nancy Tobo; parking lot/Tribeca Trib

“You look at the corner,” Eddie Romain said, pointing to the car-filled parking lot at Warren Street and West Broadway that he’s run for 42 years. “There’s nothing there.”

Nothing, Romain lamented, without Larry Powell, the beloved man who washed cars on that Tribeca corner for 25 years, but was so much more to those who knew him.

Nearly three dozen neighbors, mostly nearby Warren Street residents, gathered to remember Powell who, at age 66, died on July 25 after a four-month battle with Covid-19-related illnesses. They spoke of the Georgia native not as a man who cleaned windshields and buffed hoods, but as a close family friend. A “classy guy,” as one put it.

“He was the gentlest heart,” Michael Hooshmand said. “He would do anything for you. The kind of guy you knew that if you had problems he would be there.”

Gayle Lemke held up her phone to display a “beautiful” text of condolence that Powell sent her after her mother died. “During the pandemic he would smile with his eyes and elbow bump me,” she said. “I always looked forward to seeing him. Such a warm, gentle soul.”

Others recalled Powell’s ready smiles and high fives for neighbors, especially the kids going to and from school. His friend Jeff Simmons, who worked in the area for years, remembered standing on the corner with Powell one afternoon “and kids from school came by and they all corralled around him with the parents. I’m telling you, when I saw that I was totally floored. I was like, wow, this whole neighborhood loves this guy.”   

Treacy Gaffney remembered Powell as a big part of her son Lucas’s life. And when the family moved to Brooklyn a couple of years ago, she asked Lucas, then 17, if he would miss the neighborhood. “He said, ‘Nah, I’m just going to miss the guys on the corner.’”

“It was just a joyful thing in the morning to pass the corner and interact with Larry,” said Treacy’s husband Todd. “It started your day right.”

Powell lived in Harlem with Nancy Tobo, his partner of 20 years. They met in the parking lot when Tobo was a resident of nearby Independence Plaza and a victim of domestic violence. “He took me under his wing,” she said. 

Twenty five years ago Powell was washing cars with other men down the street when Romain, the parking lot manager, approached him. “I said, ‘Why don’t you come wash cars up here. It’s right on the corner and more people will see you.’”

“It turned his life around, I’ll tell you that,” he added.

And, for those who knew him, Larry Powell made their lives better, too.

“It’s more than the millionaires, more than the guy who has billions that people love,” Romain said. “Everybody loved Larry.”