One of our Block Captains reported something unbelievable. In the wake of Hurricane Irene, residents of 92nd Street, just off 89th Avenue, notice one of the large trees was leaning a bit — and closer inspection revealed that it was coming out of the ground. Fair enough, we’ve seen a lot of that the past few days. 311 was called and an arborist from the Parks Department arrived to inspect the tree.
After a few minutes inspection he asked the local residents who had done the sidewalk. The answer was “the city” — this was one of the blocks that had construction done due to water mains — many sidewalks in Woodhaven had been torn up and replaced. It turns out the guys doing the sidewalk had cut the roots of the tree.
How Dumb Is That?
On top of that, the arborist pointed out that electrical wires had been run through limbs of the tree — here’s one angle of the tree (taken from Google’s street view):
It’s kinda hard to see, but it does look like the wires go in between the limbs — which means when this tree comes down it’s a guarantee that the wires are gonna come down. How Dumb Is That?
Here’s another angle — we’ll try and get some better pictures later this morning —
As there has been many sidewalks torn up and replaced by the city in Woodhaven — and there are a ton of giant, old trees — the WRBA calls on the city to have the Parks Department inspect every tree on each sidewalk that was replaced in Woodhaven — and they should also check the street wiring, as well.