Plant Thefts Rattle South Oxford Street Residents

A woman brazenly spent several minutes digging out two hosta plants from a South Oxford Street tree pit in broad daylight and then walked off as if they were her own, said homeowner and street block association president Abby Weissman, whose surveillance webcam caught footage of the entire incident at around 7:14pm last Wednesday, June 10.

Although the tree pit is city property, the plants themselves belong to Weissman’s wife, who DNAInfo reports is currently undergoing treatment for cancer and who tended to the plants for two years. “That was her plant and came directly from her efforts to beautify our home and the neighborhood,” Weissman told DNAInfo.

Weissman said that while he is filing a police report, the problem goes beyond this one incident. As he noted on the South Oxford Street Block Association website, “the block’s residents have been plagued by the theft of many prime plantings over the years [and] invested thousands of fund-raised dollars in perennials and annuals to beautify the block” — efforts that earned them the Greenest Block In Brooklyn award in 2000 from the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, and a 2008 Block Beautification grant from then-Borough President Marty Markowitz.

According to Weissman, this summer has been particularly bad with thefts. As he noted to DNAInfo, “Why should anyone care what their own environment looks like and their quality of life if others can just walk in and take what they want, and there is nothing we can do about it?”

In this instance, hopefully something can be done about it if anyone recognizes the woman in the footage.

“What should we do if we see her on the block again,” asks Weissman. “What can we do about this?”