Well, on today's ride home I rode the center lane and sure enough, right past the crest of the turn in the left lane is a "Tar Strip" about 10 to 15 feet long and 3 to 4 inches wide, running parallel with the lane just right of center. Once my suspicions where confirmed, I came home and made the call to 311 and filed a complaint. The guy was very sympathetic and assured me that he would file my complaint with the NYC DOT. I got his name and complaint number as well as an email confirmation.
At the end of the conversation he asked me if I felt it posed an immediate danger. I told him "of course" and he said he is supposed to patch me through to the 911 operator and have a three way call to report it so that they could send someone right away to fix the situation. The 911 guy was rude to say the least, asking me why I'm calling when it occured yesterday. I explained that I wanted to be sure before making the call so I waited to check it out again today. He then told me that I needed to be at the scene to make any complaint and promptly hung up the phone! So I'm there in silence saying "hello?", "hello?'. The 311 guy says "I think he hung up". I told him "thats NY for ya". He apologized and assured me that the report would be filed.
Whats even more strange is that I did a search for a MC Fatality on the parkway and found the story. The rider was part of a club for which they had the Facebook link. When I clicked on the link, there at the top was a plea for everyone to call 311 to file a complaint about the situation at that turn and that even though the cops said excessive speed caused the accident, they know that it's the road condition that caused it and that the city will never admit to it. Amazing!