Tree Guards (Photo: QueensPost)
Jan 30, 2014 By Christian Murray
The Sunnyside Shines Business Improvement District has launched a street tree initiative to improve the streetscape in the Sunnyside commercial district.
The BID aims to place tree guards and bollards around all the trees in the BID district, with the support of local businesses. It also plans to plant new trees and expand tree pits where necessary.
The BID district covers all properties fronting Queens Boulevard from 38th Street to 50th Street, as well as Greenpoint Avenue from Queens Boulevard to mid-block between 42nd and 43rd Streets.
Sunnyside Shines kicked off its tree guard program earlier this month by showcasing two “model blocks,” which feature such improvements.
Local property owners White Castle and Pickman Realty are the program’s first sponsors, providing street tree improvements on two blocks: the south side of Queens Boulevard between 43rd Street and 44th Street, and the west side of 46th Street between Queens Boulevard and Greenpoint Avenue.
These two blocks serve as a model of the improvements to come to the entire district, which will be funded by sponsorships from individuals and business owners as well as Sunnyside Shines.
The streetscape improvements aim to complement the tree care and bulb planting completed during a community clean-up day last fall, co-sponsored by Sunnyside Shines, Councilman Jimmy Van Bramer, Partnerships for Parks, TreesNY and BIG!Compost.
“It is very important to maintain healthy street trees along Queens Boulevard and Greenpoint Avenue,” said Rachel Thieme, executive director of the Sunnyside Shines Business Improvement District.
“Street trees provide so many benefits to the district – from creating a buffer between vehicular traffic and pedestrians on the sidewalk, cleaner air and helping create a more attractive neighborhood to shop and do business in,” Thieme said.
Opportunities are available to sponsor individual tree guards within the Sunnyside Shines district.
Thieme said sponsors will be recognized with a plaque on the sponsored tree pit. She said individuals or businesses interested in sponsorship are invited to contact Sunnyside Shines office for more information.
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Agree with S. Native. My dog takes a dump and I pick it up. I am not stopping her from going when she starts.
aiy yai yai
@ Guttersnipe – Great comeback. You seem to have repeated the words that I said to you in the last post. I guess you are not very articulate. You could very well be the biggest tool in Sunnyside. The sidewalks are not for our neighborhood children to play on. That is what we have parks and playgrounds for, in which case we have five (5) parks in the vicinity for parents to take their children to and I will list them for you because you appear to be especially clueless: Lou Lodati Park / Torsney Park, Noonan Park, Sunnyside Gardens Park (go with a member if you are not one), Lawrence Virgilio Park and Doughboy Park. The sidewalk is an artery for live beings with two legs and four legs to walk, in order to get from one point to another. All solid canine fecal matter should be picked up and disposed of properly. Dog owners walk our dogs so they can do their business and relieve themselves. I am not stopping my dog from doing his business. I keep them off of lawns. So you are wasting your breath. You keep running your mouth, but it isn’t going to get you anywhere. The next time you see a puddle that you perceive as dog urine, put on your big boy / big girl pants and walk around it. Or look at it as a little gift that my dog left for you…Good Night!
@ Sunnyside Native – It seems the only one that lacks intellengence here is yourself. It seems I have to repeat myself. Our streets are here for pedestrians to walk on and children to play on, NOT YOUR DOG TO SH*T AND PEE ON !! Oh by the way, when YOU feel a natural act comming on do you just do it anywhere you want or do relieve yourself in a Proper Place? If you are a “Native” your a pretty poor excuse for one. So get a grip on your dog and get over it!
@ Guttersnipe – I will repeat myself because you seem to lack intelligence. I pick up my dogs poop, plus other dogs poop. Also, SUDS holds an annual scoop the poop day where we canvas the neighborhood from 40th Street to 48th Street, from Queens Blvd. down to Barnett Avenue, to pick up poop that did not come from my dogs. What am I am NOT doing is stopping my dog from doing a very natural act, by dragging or pulling him into the gutter, when he has already started doing his business. So move on! I am not risking myself or my dogs getting hit by a passing car, or deal with cars that are parking, to curtail my dog in the street to appease you – somebody who sounds like an A-hole. Get a grip and good night!
@ Sunnyside Native – You And J LOW LIFE must walk your dogs together. People like yourselves shouldn’t have dogs. You have no idea how to train or control your dogs. It’s a real pity we all have to suffer for your uncaring attitude!
@ Guttersnipe – more garbage cans are definitely needed here. Get your head out of your ass & look around. It doesn’t take a friggin rocket scientist to see that. I have seen so many store owners and/or tenants that live above the stores on Skillman Avenue, between 45th & 46th Street, throw their garbage out in the corner trash can receptacles. This, I believe, is part of why these corner trash cans get filled up so quickly. Everybody wants us dog owners to clean up after our dogs and most of us do. More trash cans would help in that endeavor.
By the way – I pick up after my dogs & others if I see poop laying on the sidewalk. However, I agree with Jlow in that I am not dragging my dogs to the curb like cattle, interrupting him when he is mid-pee or mid-poop to appease any of you either. Deal with it!
I’m still..I’m still J-Low from the block…used to live in a neighborhood with a little not a lot (of poop)…I’m still..I’m still J-Low from the block!!
Amen – Sunnyside Native.
@ Sunnysider – your comments are so ridiculous. The piles of poop that you speak of is a lie. Which block are you referring to? The majority of dogs in our neighborhood have a dog walker. We have around 10 dog walkers in the area now. Then consider the fact in the new world that we live in that many dog owners work from home, so the dogs get to go out more often. So most dogs are NOT couped up in an apartment. But thanks for being so concerned about our neighborhood dogs . Sunnyside has some of the most pampered pooches in the city. More & more buildings are going dog friendly, so get used to it!
@J-LOW LIFE: It seems you’re the only tool posting here, and obviously not the sharpest tool in the shed! If you were performing your due diligence we wouldn’t see your dog sh*t & pee stains all over our streets. Dogs can be trained to do their business in the road not on the street. It seem you lack the intelligence to do so. Garbage cans from the Dept. of Sanitation are not needed here. Just the removal of the trashy unconcerned dog owners like yourself!
I moved to Sunnyside 2 years ago. I love it here. My neighbor has a dog & I go with her to the dog run with her dog. It does appear that the poop situation is much better now. I have met a couple of SUDS members and they are great. I am hoping to get a dog myself very soon. Go SUDS!
@ Sunnysider: go pop your Viagra, get busy with your lady and maybe you will be a lot happier once you get your rocks off.
SUNNYSIDE YOU ARE FULL OF CACA!!!!
Sunnyside United Dog Society (SUDS)….what a crock…more like Sunnyside Under Dog Sh*t!!!
Dog owners think it is a free pass when it snows!! I love dogs – but obviously the owners in Sunnyside are not up to it! Yes – it is not just a few owners giving you all a bad name, I would say there is probably one owner who picks up for every two who do not.
I walked by up to 20 piles of dog sh*t on way to work this morning – and that is only a few blocks!! These people make me sick!! It is disgusting!!
I feel bad for some of the poor dogs couped up all day in an apt, get to walk a few times if they are lucky. Bursting to go to bathroom and barely make it outside!! Every day there is a pool of dog p*ss outside my building, sometimes a trail of p*ss from elevator to the door, dogs p*ssing all over recently planted trees. It’s too much!!
Maybe parents should pick up after there Demon Spawn!!!! who throw garbage everywhere.
@ Guttersnipe: what was your Mama’s reaction when you pulled her off the bowl? I perform my due diligence my picking up my dogs fecal matter and I am not stopping my dog from taking a crap to appease some of you tools. So just get over it already. It’s a shame that some owners do not pick up their dogs crap. Yes, we do need more trash cans. Please contact JVB’s office or the Dept. of Sanitation. Let me know how that goes.
Sunnysideisblooming, Thank you! I’d like to help if possible. I’ll sign up at your website.
People are definitely not responsible dog owners. If you want to be a pet owner in the city picking up messes is all a part of the package. Oh and we need more trash cans!
Kudos to White Castle and Pickman. What about ING, Burger King, CVS, Capital One, Chase, McDonalds and Wendys?
Apologies for that last comment–when I read the MTA’s article earlier today, the affected stations would be along the 7 and the M. Currently the article says the J and the M.
We definitely need more trash cans. Overflowing cans and scattered garbage are already an issue, and the MTA is now planning to REMOVE trash cans from stations all along the 7 train.
http://new.mta.info/news/2014/01/27/trash-can-removal-pilot-expand
I think this deserves an article of its own. We definitely need strategies to deal with this instead of just letting trash get all over our stations and streets.
@ J-Low: How obvious it is that you are one of the culprits that stain our streets with your dogs’ feces and urine! It sounds like you have no control over your dog. Maybe you should own a hamster instead. I’ve owned a few dogs and it was never a problem training them to relieve themselves in the road. Your statement about “Mama” just shows what a LOW LIFE you really are!
How much to sponsor a tree guard? Really hope landlords are made to help out in this program. They take the rents from tenants but do nothing to improve the neigherhood
My cousin is a sanitation worker right here in Sunnyside. He said dog feces on our sidewalks was a problem, but has gotten much better. He said the general garbage that people litter on the sidewalks is the bigger issue. He said in the past 4 months he has found 2 used condoms and 1 hypodermic needle on two different sidewalks in Sunnyside. THIS is what we should be concerned about; not dog crap. Dog crap is old news that has significantly improved. Talk about something else already. Some of you sound like a broken record.
Maybe it’s true that most of the dog owners do clean up (what they can) after their dogs, but it’s also true that most of the really offensive stuff on our sidewalks comes from dogs. I really do not want to deal with dog waste and choose not to own a dog, but because of a minority segment of our population who refuse to cooperate, I am forced to encounter all kinds of dog mess on the sidewalk on a regular basis. Honestly, it’s disgusting. Who are you people who do not seem to mind living like this??
Sorry to disappoint you Rikki, but more & more apartment buildings are allowing dogs and most owners allow their sub-tenants to have a dog. It is filling the need of supply & demand and more & more people in Sunnyside want to own a dog. Like in the other boroughs.
Nobody should own a Dog in an apartment. The more apartment houses that ban dogs the better I like it.
If you want to own a dog then buy or rent a house with its own backyard….keep the poop in your yard.
@ Guttersnipe: the next time your Mama is taking a crap on the toilet bowl, pull her off the bowl mid-crap and tell me what her reaction is! When my dog catches a scent that encourages him to poop, I am not dragging him to a lew location closer to the curb to make some of you idiots happy. Screw that. I pick up his crap and dispense it at the nearest garbage can.
doglover you are an ASSWIPE!
Great initiative.
I would take it a step further in the beautification of Greenpoint avenue and suggest informing the store owners of what awnings and store fronts look like in other more vibrant and commercially successful neighborhoods.
Working class and unpretentious doesn’t mean have to mean tacky and dated looking.
Sunnysider
The much of the northside was a planned project so, in essence, the trees were planned too. The most “tree” area of the southside is arguably Celtic Park, also a planned project.
Sunnyside Shines and the BID have done a great job. I am planning an effort to do similar work in other area of Sunnyside not covered by the BID. If you are interested go to my website and get involved.
http://Sunnysideisblooming.com
Why does Sunnyside south have so few trees compared Sunnyside north?
Bollards are important on the Boulevard… so folks can tie up their boats…
Let’s see if any of the dog owners step up and sponsor the tree shields and , more importantly, keep their pets out and clean up after them.
I am all in favor of more neighborhood lush of plantings throughout the South side of Queen’s Blvd. But, what about more planting on the North side of Queen’s Blvd.? Is that going to be neglected? The area of Sunnyside/Woodside prides it’s self on it’s plantings which date back to the 1940’s.
I’ll drag my dog into the street to poo/pee…
Nice project. Skillman Ave. desperately needs trash cans. I don’t see any and there are businesses. What is the problem? Sanitation Dept. ? I think people would use them if they are available. What is the problem?
The dogshit on Sunnyside Streets is out of control!
What the hell is the matter with most Sunnyside dog owners! The Dog Sh*t and Dog urine stained streets ate disguisting. Dont these morons know that they are supposed to curb their dogs. It means control your dog
and not to allow your 4-legged friend to befoul the sidewalk (pavement), but to convince him somehow that the road is a canine toilet. Maybe if we just relieved ourselves in front of their house doorsteps and apartment doors they’ll get the message.
That’s right it’s all the dogs fault geez what a bunch hateful CREEPS live in Sunnyside. Like I have said beofre there is more garbage and waste from humans than from Dogs.
Local property owners Pickman Realty ?? Who and where do they own property??
Great project that will hopefully give the newly planted trees a better chance of survival and protection against dog poop and urine.
Great project for the community.
This is definitely a good idea, as is adding more trash cans. But South, don’t blame all dog owners for the irresponsible actions of the lazy dog owners who don’t pick up their dog’s poop.
A great idea. While there are clearly many things this neighborhood needs to focus on, it will be nice to see fewer tree pits operating as full-time dog-turd collection sites. Glad to see that local businesses are continuing to support Sunnyside Shines.
Yay!
More trash cans too please!