Photo: QueensPost
April 22, 2013 By Bill Parry
Six months after Superstorm Sandy damaged or destroyed scores of trees in Sunnyside and Woodside a program has begun to replace them.
Civic leaders and representatives from the City Parks Foundation gathered outside Mario’s Restaurant (43-04 47th Ave.) on Monday morning to replant the first of 70 new trees.
“What better way to celebrate Earth Day than planting a tree,” said councilman Jimmy Van Bramer, whose office has kept track of where the downed trees were located.
The Sunnyside/Woodside street that was most devastated by the hurricane was 48th Street between Skillman and 39th Ave. “It lost more trees than any other block,” Van Bramer said. However, “there were pockets of downed trees in all areas of Sunnyside and Woodside.”
Greening Western Queens, an offshoot of the City Parks Foundation, is in charge of replanting the trees. That group, which was born out of the 2006 power outage settlement with Con Edison, has worked with Van Bramer in surveying the district to determine where the trees were lost and where to plant the new ones.
“The trees we’re replanting are already 5 to 6 years old,” said Kyle Richard, the community coordinator for Greening Western Queens. “They’ll take 15 to 20 years to reach maturity.”
Don McCallian, the President of the United 40’s Civic Association, said, “Thanks to the parks people for the 70 trees. Now how about 70 more?”
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23 Comments
Anonymous is not me. Sorry to disappoint. I refer to you as Oppressed Masses. How is it going with you becoming an Arborist, because you care SO very much about the trees (yeah right). For everybody who owns a house, condo or co-op here…this is what Oppressed Masses would like to see at Lou Lodati Park. He thinks these are the ‘good old days’. Get a hobby and a life, Oppressed Masses! Take a queue from Mr. Murphy and go sit in on a community board meeting. I’ll see you there!
http://sunnysidepost.com/2011/09/04/lou-ladati-park-leave-the-family-at-home
Native, come on, your gibberish is too familiar. You can’t post as Anonymous and continue to write like a moron.
SUDS-
Please install some trees so OM will have somewhere to your his gale volleyball nets too.
Thanks
Native, when the dog oasis officially opens, will you bring around your friend David, the park worker who kept track of your dog’s bowel movements? And will parents be required to have their child on a leach if they want to get some shade in the dog oasis?
As a long time home owner, I do not want to go to back to those days, of the guys peeing in the park! I do go to community board meetings, but not regularly, but I will now after seeing those pics on the link above. Thank you SN for posting that link. I somehow missed that article back then.
I guess Oppressed Masses wants to go back to these days!
http://sunnysidepost.com/2011/09/04/lou-ladati-park-leave-the-family-at-home
Yep. It’s official. Oppresses Masses with his Mommy issues is seriously losing it. Softball PLAYERS, Basketball PLAYERS and Hockey PLAYERS never had any shade over us when we played any of those sports in the field at Lou Loadati Park. Glad that we now have some green space to relax & read a book, while our dogs play together. If you want to better serve Sunnyside, put a plan together of ways to improve upon your community. It seems like all you have time for in your sad little world is to whine & complain and you continually prove to be no value-add to our community. Maybe you should move to Greenpoint, Brooklyn or Williamsburg, Brooklyn? I am sure they will love you there. You could become a troll on their neighborhood forums. I have to remember that you are just one of the many sociopaths living in the city…
“We will survive”. Yep, the navel gazing, deceased dogs in the sky, sidewalk dog poop is not as bad as cigarette butts crowd will do just fine with all the new trees placed for Lodati located around the dog oasis. Softball players, moms, dads, grandmas, grand dads, aunts and uncles pushing in closer to obtain the little shade cut in half by the removal of the tree on 43rd Street, too bad, that’s the price of progress. You people were foolish enough to think that our elected officials would look out for everyone’s interests and not hand over the vast majority of park improvement taxpayer monies to create an oasis for dogs. And don’t you people even think about doing anything critical of dogs and their bathroom habits, or a certain band of neighbor zealots will monitor your driving habits, take pictures, and loudly complain about you in the local paper.
Yes, OM, there I go again, giving you facts and reality. You really have no idea what you are talking about.
The tree was replaced by many trees, in its same spot? Of course not. The design changed the space. As for the second tree, they aren’t done bringing equipment into the park & the entrance (which was one of the most poorly designed that I have ever seen) is being reconfigured. If there is room for a tree there, great! If not, we will survive as we have @ least 5-6 new trees. Doing basic math, that means we have how many more trees, OM? I’ll let you get your calculator. There will be more than enough shade for all. One tree, all the way up by the corner of 43rd st. will not have a dramatic effect on volleyball/soccer players, nor handball. Softball will still have a bunch of large trees running up/down 43rd St./Skillman.
The fence w/ hoops will be under the tree canopy. The fence is tight to those trees. That single missing tree will have little/no effect on the new hoops area.
I have plenty of use for people that play sports, network, socialize and have fun! Regardless of their sport/affiliation. Good for them! Awesome! They deserve their own space, and will get it. What no one should have use for is anyone (regardless of race/religion/socio-eco status, etc etc) destroying the park on a daily basis. People use bathrooms, animals go outside. Simple. Funny how you seem to enjoy the fact that people go to the bathroom outside w/i the park (w/ the bathroom open), leaving mini lakes of urine throwing trass everywhere. That’s ok, but someone leaving poo on the ground is bad? They are both gross. The simple fact that you had no cidea about this behavior tells me that you never had a clue as to what was going on just outside your own window. You lose all credibility. Sunnyside Post had an article back in Spring of 2011 where they posted pics of what was going on, you commented to me that you’d like to ‘walk the park’ together, seeming very concerned. What more evidence do you need?
The reason the dog run is surrounded by that greenspace is to try and provide some beauty to the park and to serve as a buffer between the 2 areas.
RD
Native, I see you are back on the Duggan’s Dew, you are making no sense. Or maybe all that time standing in the sun at Queen of Angels fried your brains. If you have spent any time at all watching what happens when a softball game is played in Lodati, you know the parents and players all try to squeeze under the little shade that is available. Now, thanks to the Van B Dog Oasis there will substantially less shade. The basketball courts are being moved from the area near to the Park House where there was some shade over to the area near the Major World shops where there will no shade thanks to the missing tree. Laughing at comments? I don’t know which of your stories has been more comical: the guy who studied your dog’s butt and went to court to testify about it, or the priest performing a miracle on your dog at Sunday Mass, or you sitting with your dog drinking wine outdoors at Claret, or your idea to put young children on a leach, and so on. Thanks for the laughs Native!
The tree IN the park cannot be replaced in the EXACT same spot, as I believe there was an issue with the foundation that the pre-existing tree was on. So, the tree has in fact had a replacement. Dead tree and stump removal is one of the NYC Parks Departments fervent jobs. It is still TBD from the Parks Dept. on whether or not the tree on 43rd Street will be replaced in the EXACT same spot, but again…MORE trees have already been added into Lou Lodati Park. I played softball for YEARS on the Queen of Angels softball team and we never had ANY shade when we played. Ever. Also, the basketball courts cannot have ‘less shade’ because, again…they never had any shade to begin with either. So many dumb comments from OM and so little time to address them all. Rick was spot on, in his comments above. OM just loves to nag, whine and be a troll on this forum in the hopes of being antagonistic. All the while, people are now just shaking their heads and laughing at your ridiculous comments. OM, please stop acting like a child and do something that will benefit your community. If you are SO very interested in trees, go become an Arborist!
@ PG – if you want more trees planted on 43rd Street, please visit the City of NY Parks & Recreation website and visit the Street Tree Planting page to request a street tree. My guess is the park could be completed by the end of June, but that is for the Parks Dept. to comment on and make an official statement. Thanks!
im gonna be playin ball in do crap now
In regards to the park, why is it taking so long to finish, they literally work twice a week, i really hope its done by next month and not august. I want to enjoy it during summer break. (Playing Basketball)
Btw There should be more trees on 43rd st.
There you go again Rick with half truths. The two trees you mention were not “replaced”. Nothing has been planted in the place formerly occupied by the two trees; trees have been planted in different locations in or around the Van B Dog Oasis. As a result, the girls softball area will have less shade and the residents of 43rd Street north of Skillman have one fewer tree on a block already suffering a paucity of trees. Likewise, the area around the volleyball/basketball courts will have less shade and reduced green space, but you have already explained that you and SUDS have little use for the people likely to use that space. I know Rick, those people don’t deserve much because you say they pee on the trees, but even if your claim is accurate, why does the area that will be the loci of an avalanche of canine feces and urine get all the new trees?
We will be adding a few more trees to the area around the dog run in the months after it opens. Parks has asked SUDS to help take care of the new green space. If anyone in sunnysidepostland wants to volunteer contact me @ sudsmutts@hotmail.com
2 trees were taken down-1 within the park that had a hole inside it that ran from 3 feet up toward the top of the tree. It was on its way out anyway. The other was near the entrance. That tree was set on fire about 5 years back by moron w/ their fireworks. It was still healthy, but needed to come down to fit the equipment and expand the entrance way from the 3 foot high one you had to limbo to get into the park along 43rd st. (those of you that used the park will understand what I mean).
There are easily 5-6 NEW trees already in the park. So, those 2 have been replaced.
RD
That’s the most work those politicians have done! I didn’t know they could shovel it so much.
More photosynthesis! Yay!
OM, nobody cares about your opinion on the dog park. I think everybody already knows that you don’t want it here.
NOTE: Oppressed Masses main concerns for the neighborhood are as follows and are in no particular order: The well being of pigeons, neighborhood pub crawls and the trees & plant life of Sunnyside. I thikn he might be looking to be become a full time horticulturist.
I wonder if the re is a plan to replace the trees knocked down on 43rd Street and inside Lodati Park to make way for the new doggy estate? The new landscaping, gardening and benches show that the dog park area is clearly deserving of its new name, The Van Bramer Oasis, laying in an ocean of asphalt.
I can’t wait for these tree’s to fall on cars again
I’m glad to see this happening. My grandfather Patrick Corrigan won the bid to plant the original trees because he had a “volunteer” workforce his sons Michael, Matthew and Patrick.
Yet, there are still trees being damaged by scaffolding, construction, signage, etc.. all around the neighborhood and nobody will do anything about them.