How corny

From the Queens Gazette:

Corn is growing in leaps and bounds on a sidewalk in the Dutch Kills community in Long Island City. The crop is blooming beneath some newly planted city street trees on a stretch of grass along 30th Street between 39th and 40th Avenues – beating the odds by having survived the blistering July heat wave. If you look closely, you can see almost a dozen small ears of corn among the stalks – yet another sign of growth in the community that proudly displays a stone from a local gristmill, dated to the early 1600s at its “front doorstep”, at Queens Plaza.

Who planted corn in a city tree pit and how long do you think that will last, especially now that it's been spotlighted in the newspaper?

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Parks isn't always to blame for street tree conditions

Ok, so what a-hole did this?

This concreted tree is in front of 578 Seneca Avenue in Ridgewood. I suppose a vibrant, diverse tree hater is lurking around there.

So, is this tree a goner?

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Let's play a guessing game

"Egyptian slum, or Steinway Street?" - Nick

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Astoria also a pig sty

"Here is the Astoria Garbage Photo of the week. 41st street and 28th avenue. The neighborhood is turning into a slum." - Nick

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Tree protection plan

I know you're trying to protect that young tree, but I can't imagine a wooden fence is going to last very long next to the curb.

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Property liens for sidewalks damaged by street trees

From Bayside Patch:

State Sen. Tony Avella, D-Bayside, joined Little Neck residents on Thursday to protest the city’s policy of placing a non-monetary lien on several local properties that had received sidewalk violations for damages for which they were not responsible.

Several Little Neck residents were handed violations a few months ago that they felt were unfair since the majority of the damages are small cracks that are in line with cracks on the streets and uplifts caused by city tree roots.

While the residents are not personally responsible for any of the damages, a non-monetary lien will still be placed on any property with a sidewalk violation, which will come up on a title search of that property, Avella said.

The lien is removed once the condition is corrected either by the city or the homeowner. But if the homeowner is selling the property, they would likely have to put extra money in escrow prior to the closing to compensate the buyer for any potential repair cost for an outstanding violation.

“What the city is doing here is simply unacceptable,” Avella said. “Most of the small deficiencies in these sidewalks are being caused by city property, whether it is a city tree or street. Yet the city feels the need to not only sock these homeowners with violations, but to also place a non-monetary lien on their property.”

Avella said the rule seemed like an attempt by the city to skirt its responsibilities by pressuring homeowners into repairing the sidewalk, even though they are not responsible for the damages.

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Lesson learned

Turns out that despite the advice received in the comments section of my post about Dunkin Donuts using a street tree and pit for advertising, I didn't have to "take care of the problem myself." There's the easy way to do things and the right way to do things. The Parks Department handled the situation, as they were supposed to. Thank you.

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Stop butchering street trees

From CBS New York:

Residents of certain sections of Queens have said their beautiful, tree-lined streets are being massacred, and the storms of the past year are not to blame.

Rather, as CBS 2’s Hazel Sanchez reported, the residents of Auburndale and Bayside blame Con Edison.

Con Edison contractors have been making the rounds trimming trees around power lines. But the odd-looking end results are not aesthetically acceptable for the many neighbors.

Con Ed officials said, “Overgrown and fallen tree limbs are the leading cause of power outages during storms, and their tree maintenance program is critical in keeping the lights on.

But some residents argued there has to be a better option.

“The ultimate solution is to put the wires underground, because this way it’s for safety reasons,” said Henry Euler of the Auburndale Civic Association. “And it’s less likely to lose power during storms and it just looks better in the neighborhood.”

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Dunkin Donuts thinks street tree is their property

The Dunkin Donuts on Grand Avenue just east of 69th Street has been using the street tree and tree pit as advertising space for years. I have made several complaints to no avail. This is the biggest sign I have seen there so far. You'd think the Parks Department would do something about it as it should be a fairly easy situation to rectify.

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Parks responds to yesterday's posting

"On a hunch, I walked past the site featured yesterday and found a Parks forestry officer directing an employee on how to fix the scaffold around the trees.

Unfortunately, the damage has already been done.

The scaffold openings have been widened, and in some areas, the side of the scaffold has been opened up.

It remains to be seen if the trees will survive the abuse.

I am wondering if a fine was levied, but will probably never find out.

Why does Parks respond after the fact instead of before the project gets underway?" - Anonymous

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SCA = School Construction Arboricide

The old St. Aloysius school on Seneca Avenue in Ridgewood has been purchased by the School Construction Authority, which has plans to demolish the building and replace it with a new elementary school (across the street from PS305, which is also brand new but already full and which is a few blocks away from PS290, also under construction).
Anyway, the company hired by SCA that erected the scaffold around the building has damaged every one of the surrounding street trees.
These are relatively young trees, planted only a few years ago, and we're already going to lose them because a tree protection plan was not implemented as required.
Do agencies in this administration actually communicate with each other?
So Bloomie's planting one million new trees? How about protecting the ones already here?
There's gotta be a better way than this.
But this is Queens, so no one cares. Not the community board, not the council member, not the school construction authority, not the parks department.
And look at all the municipal contracts the offending scaffolding company has!

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Stumped on Linden Street

Back in 2011, there was a happy little tree on the corner of Linden Street at 60th Place in Ridgewood.

But then something bad happened (Sandy?), and now all that's left is this stump, which has been here for months, and has some kind of identifying number painted on it, similar to a toe-tag on a cadaver.

It would be nice if someone picked this eyesore up and disposed of it properly.

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