Thursday, December 22, 2022

No new trees for these 2 East Village spots

Photos and reporting by Stacie Joy

On Dec. 1, the city dug up spaces on multiple East Village sidewalks to plant new trees.

Days later, however, we were surprised to see that the newly created tree wells in front of 40 Avenue B between Third Street and Fourth Street and 26 Avenue A between Second Street and Third Street were filled in ...
We tracked down a city official who told us the following: "The trees can't go in by 40 Avenue B and 26 Avenue A because the buildings have basements under the sidewalks that Parks found when they excavated. [That is likely] true of the others, though without specific addresses cannot confirm."

Meanwhile, you can follow this link to request a street tree on your block — hopefully in a spot not above a basement. 

12 comments:

Anonymous said...

They're called sidewalk vaults

Anonymous said...

And they're taxed by the city!

Choresh Wald said...

Remove free car parking and plant the trees where the cars are currently stored.

Anonymous said...

The city refuses to replace the tree that was in front of my building for 20+ years and came down in a winter storm because “utilities are in the way.” Hello, there already was a tree? Impossible to interact with these people.

Anonymous said...

Somebody filled a tree pit in with concrete that already has a newly planted sapling tree in it on 7th st near Pylos.

Anonymous said...

Yes, makes perfect sense!

Anonymous said...

stop killing trees in this neighborhood.

Anonymous said...

Time to move to the Catskills buddy. Where do you want people to park cars then?

Anonymous said...

I think they were already badly placed, sometimes they are an obstacle on certain sidewalks like the restaurants, so I’m not mad about this. The city doesn’t know what they’re doing, they cut down a massive tree on the next block over from me that’s been a rotting stump of rats now for a year and won’t remove and replace that yet they cut up sidewalks for new wells.

Anonymous said...

Why do you stay in New York when you so clearly hate it?

Anonymous said...

This also happened on 2nd street! The neighbors called 311 and the city had the concrete removed. Definitely worth calling for this tree!

Anonymous said...

Love trees but in some cases the City has put at bus stops impacting bus access including wheelchair.

Is that a DOT issue (DOT administers bus stops) or Parks Dept?