Ordered that the resettled judgment is affirmed insofar as appealed from, with costs.
A review of the trial evidence, particularly the testimony of the plaintiff Rita Gallo as to the circumstances of her fall into a hole in the grass adjacent to the curbline, which area was part of the sidewalk (see, Vehicle and Traffic Law § 144) and concededly owned by the defendant Town of Hempstead, establishes that the cause of the accident was not the cement object situated at the bottom of the hole, but the hole itself. Clearly, then, it was an actual physical defect in the sidewalk that was responsible for Rita Gallo's injury, and, therefore, the written notice provision of Town Law § 65-a (2) expressly applied to the case at bar. Since the plaintiffs conceded that the town had not received prior written notice of the defect in accordance with that section of the Town Law, the trial court properly dismissed the complaint on that ground (see, Parella v Levin, 111 A.D.2d 750; Abbatecola v Town of Islip, 97 A.D.2d 780; cf. Flynn v Town of N. Hempstead, 97 A.D.2d 430; Schare v Incorporated Vil. of E. Rockaway, 95 A.D.2d 802).
Furthermore, the plaintiffs failed to prove that the town created the hole or engaged in any affirmative tortious conduct which would have exempted them from establishing compliance with Town Law § 65-a (2) (see, Martin v City of Cohoes, 37 N.Y.2d 162, 166; Zortman v City of Niagara Falls, 101 A.D.2d 711). Mangano, J.P., Niehoff, Kooper and Spatt, JJ., concur.
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