Young Trees Removed from Stratford Road

Where there used to be young street trees, about 20 circles of dirt now line Stratford Road between Albemarle and Beverley. This past Friday morning the trees were dug up because, according to a couple of neighbors, they didn’t conform to the original plan for the neighborhood of Prospect Park South.

“Trees were planted every twenty feet, not along the curb, but on the building line to create a more spacious, open feeling that still remains today,” says a description of the neighborhood plan on Mary Kay Gallagher’s website.

We reached out to the Prospect Park South Neighborhood Association and the Parks Department to find out the details, but we’re still waiting to hear back from them.

A neighbor adds that he understands an agreement was made to first offer the removed trees to the residents in the neighborhood to plant on private property on residents’ lawns, and any remaining trees would be moved to nearby blocks, but says that he was not made aware of this arrangement, and that only one person took the city up on this offer.

On the bright side, it seems at least some of those other trees have stayed in the neighborhood. Yesterday I spoke with Aaron, who’s part of an arborist company that’s contracted by the city to work on street trees, as he was laying wood chips around several newly-planted spruce trees on Avenue H between Rugby and Westminster Roads. Those trees appeared on Friday, and he confirmed that yep, they’re some of the ones from Stratford Road.