It’s actually the first full day in the life of my new sidewalk garden, which yesterday was a dry gray patch of dirt, a raggedy old stump, and gray concrete bricks. It’s now has a new, budding tree, blue and white amaryllis bulbs waiting to burst with color, and a few other wispy grassy flowers, with the gray concrete blocks reincarnated as a temporary wall. My neighbor says “they” always steal his flowers, but I figured, mine are so small, what would be the point?
Well I of course woke up 4 times last night to look out the window and check on my babies. All good. Then this afternoon I look outside, and some punk pushed one of the blocks on top of one of the plants. No big deal — I put the hearty ones on the edges. I put everything right, picked up all the trash that had accumulated for the day, and went back inside.
I will win this fight. Let Bushwick be green!
Mary June 5th, 2007 at 4:22 pm
It’s a real problem when people don’t care about their neighborhood, and all the garbage they throw on the streets.
Anyone know where to go to buy plants?
Patricia Stegman June 17th, 2007 at 3:33 pm
Hi; this is off the subject of gardening perhaps;but related to what happens in ones front yard/areaway/sidewalk: I’m not in Bushwick but I think this is not confined to any one area(I’m in Boerum Hill) …The problem I & many neighbors have is the ticketing of homes for the dumping of advertising circulars. Most brownstones in Boerum Hill are only 2family;but the folks who leave the advertising newspapers/circulars always dump many more than 2 on the steps of each house. One can sweep and hose and polish gloriously the front of a house; but when you turn your back,in 5t minutes; there is a heap of unsolicited, unwanted trash in front; and if the Sanitation ticketer comes by at that moment; you get a ticket for $100. I have paid several of them but now I am going on strike and I refuse….I do hope some of you will visit me in prison! Several years ago I was the chairperson of the Sannitation Committee of the Boerum Hill Association; and we met regularly with people from the NYC Sanitation department; and succeeded in slowing down the onslaught of tickets for a while…but it is an ongoing problem. Sanit loves to ticket empty lots when they get stuff dumped in front of them; but unwanted circulars and advertising circulars are dumping as well; and
I feel that the shops & corporations which print this stuff are the ones which should be given the violations. After all; isn’t our property private property which they should not have the right to dump on? Giving us tickets seems to us to be a really good example of “blaming the victiim”.
I have read that the city has enuf of a surplus that it is going to return some $$$ to homeowners—this means that the city should not need to give out tickets so as to earn money. These tickets are just another tax. I sugest that we band together and go on strike against paying these tickets. Anybody else all burned up about this?
Jeremy June 17th, 2007 at 3:50 pm
That’s pretty outrageous, and it’s the same here in Bushwick with the flyers and circulars — they are bigger than the damn newspaper, and I’d say at least half the trash blowing around is these circulars that nobody even reads. I haven’t gotten a ticket for it, but I’m pretty obsessive about cleaning up the front of the house as often as possible.
I don’t know if I’d join a strike but you’d definitely get moral support from me and this site!
Patricia Stegman June 17th, 2007 at 4:09 pm
Jeremy: Thanks for your reply. I think at least what we should all do is to write to our local person on the City Council…..I’m sure that there are a gazillion people in NYC/Brooklyn who have had the same problem. Incidentally; I read recently in the “Letters to the Editor” in the TIMES that the city has closed the dump which it used to have available to that one could take stuff which otherwise might be too much to just put out in front….so that it becomes more difficult or impossible to get rid of stuff without paying a private carter. So there’s a big double standard as to what the city provides in the way of sanitation help and what we are expected to do.
Matt June 18th, 2007 at 3:44 pm
We got nabbed a few months ago. We are pretty good at keeping our area clean but sometimes our street is a whirling pulp factory, with a school on one side creating a natural wind tunnel. (With plenty of middle school kids who also think nothing of dropping their dorrito bags, etc. on their walk to and from school)
I was pissed to say the least but to be honest, it was just bad timing. Our gate was open and a literal forest of circulars had created a snowdrift against our house. So I couldn’t really fight it. It was insane!
Live and learn. And next step, when we actually get around to it, a new fence that doesn’t allow trash to pile up inside the gates.