Neck Road Looks Spiffier, Thanks To Concerned Residents And A Grant

If you’ve been on Gravesend Neck Road near East 14th Street in the past month, you may have noticed that the area is looking a lot more colorful thanks to some love from locals.

Several over-sized flower pots sporting shrubs and flowers debuted on the road in mid-June after neighbors on East 14th Street had enough of the area’s gritty appearance.

Julia Chernova and other residents of the block applied for and received a $1,000 from Citizen’s Committee for New York City’s Love Your Block grant, a city program to empower neighborhoods at the grassroots level to take things into their own hands.

With money in hand, they bought the planters,  flowers, and soil, as well as tree guards for their block on East 14th Street, between Avenue X and Gravesend Neck Road, Chernova told Sheepshead Bites.

This is the same group of residents who, along with the block’s civic-minded kids, worked hard to clean up their street, turning unused tree wells into mini gardens in April 2011. It wasn’t long before some heartless passerby damaged their hand-painted “Don’t Litter” signs, but that was fixed up right quick, and the kids were honored by local pols for their efforts.

This, folks, is how you take care of your community!