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April 17, 2007
More Nor'easter Wreckage, Prospect Heights Edition
And you thought your house got hit hard by the torrential rains of the last two days! A reader sent in this photo of the tree that used to stand in her back yard. Since it's as tall as a five-story house it reached as far as four-yards away when it toppled yesterday. The estimated cost of removal? $1,800. It's pretty amazing it didn't crush any fences or nice garden furniture. (Gotta love those 130-foot lots they got over there.)
Rain, Rain, Go Away [Brownstoner]
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Comments
holy crap. was it lightening or just crazy winds?
Posted by: Kel at April 17, 2007 10:17 AM
What block was this on???
Posted by: Anonymous at April 17, 2007 10:27 AM
Wow--they're SO lucky there wasn't more damage. I sometimes worry about the giant oak in my neighbor's yard.
Posted by: Bob Marvin at April 17, 2007 10:29 AM
I'm not sure what amazes me more: the stretch of that tree, or the fact those backyards are probably close to 3Xs as long as mine.
Posted by: Amy at April 17, 2007 11:16 AM
What a nightmare--it's so sad to lose a big tree. I've always wondered about removing a big one like this when you live in a brownstone with all enclosed backyards--can you imagine what a job it will be to slice this thing into tiny enough pieces and then haul them through the garden level of the house? Damn shame we don't have alleys like Chicago...
Posted by: bob999 at April 17, 2007 11:43 AM
what amazes me is that New Yorkers with expensive houses and fancy kitchen renovations make such a poor job on their backyards. Awful metal fences, bald lawns....thoughtless design. Ugh.
Posted by: Anonymous at April 17, 2007 11:57 AM
I don't feel as bad now, seeing that, even though my basement had 6 inches of water in it -- water that was gushing from the FLOOR.
Posted by: Jeremy at April 17, 2007 12:03 PM
Who says that these owners have any money? They may have bought years ago.
Posted by: Anonymous at April 17, 2007 12:18 PM
Can anyone tell what kind of a tree it was?
Posted by: Anonymous at April 17, 2007 12:21 PM
Only a guess, but many Brooklyn backyards have huge Silver maples. The root systems are very shallow and they are very fast growing. Could be the saturated ground combined with a stiff wind toppled this tree, roots and all.
Posted by: Anonymous at April 17, 2007 1:13 PM
Hope they will recycle the tree...
Posted by: Anonymous at April 17, 2007 1:58 PM
This is incredible. I moved into a beautiful {rental} Crown Heights brownstone apt in January, chosen partly because of the view of huge backyards full of trees. Now, since Spring is here, it's obvious almost ALL {except 1!} of those huge trees are stone cold dead, and we risk them falling down like this one at any point. Why the owners of these lovely old houses have such shitty, and I mean SHITTY, dead, garbage filled backyards is totally beyond me. I've had fantasies of asking people if I could work in their yards. If it were easier to get into them, without going through others homes, I'd do it in a heartbeat.
Posted by: enid at April 17, 2007 2:28 PM
i think judging any of the particular backyards in this picture is a bit unfair. it's barely spring. as an avid lanscaper and gardener, i don't think they look nearly as horrible as some of you say. by june, i'm sure they'll look a ton better. sure, chain link fence isn't my fave, but that is what most people have. as for the rest...we are barely out of winter. give the plants a chance before you banish them as hideous and unkempt.
Posted by: anon at April 17, 2007 2:38 PM
When I moved into my house in Clinton Hill there was years worth of broken windows, pottery and assorted garbage burried in the backyard. I have no idea how the former owners lived with it that way- they even had young children.
Posted by: Girgis at April 17, 2007 3:32 PM
Metal fences work well with sun rays.
Posted by: Anonymous at April 17, 2007 4:26 PM
"Why the owners of these lovely old houses have such shitty, and I mean SHITTY, dead, garbage filled backyards is totally beyond me"
Where is the garbage?
Posted by: Anonymous at April 17, 2007 5:08 PM
Sorry, NOT in the picture above, in the backyards where I live in CH. I'd love to look out at the scene pictured, believe me.
Posted by: enid at April 17, 2007 5:48 PM
About those metal chain-link fences: My neighbor and I planted ivy along the base of the fence between our yards and wove the vines through the links. It took about two growing seasons to turn the fence into a green wall. We've since added honeysuckle (for the perfume) and sweet autumn clematis (flowers in early autumn). You can't see the chain-link fence at all any more. The vertical garden gives us privacy (there are still spots where the foliage is low enough so we can talk over the fence)... and it's a lot prettier than a stockade fence.
Posted by: Anonymous at April 17, 2007 5:55 PM
When I bought my house, it had two HUGE trees in the backyard. One, the Norway maple, stretches over 7 properties. The other, a silver maple, was huge, like this one, and leaned over into a neighbor's property with two leaders -- one stretching into their backyard and one over their roof. The short version of the story is I got the silver maple checked out and it was very rotten inside. I got multiple bids to have it taken down and it wound up costing me 2500 to take it down (God bless those guys who swung around on ropes to do it) and 1000 to have the stump taken out. I had the other tree trimmed of dead branches, which cost me 1500 dollars. Who knew these damn trees would cost so much. That's the bad news.
The good news is that the existing tree is in good shape and the other one wasn't around to crash down on anyone or anyone's property. It is sad to see such a large old tree felled, but it would be a hell of a lot sadder if it did serious damage to the house, someone in the house, a pedestrian, a parked car, or someone in a parked car.
These people were very lucky.
Posted by: donatella at April 17, 2007 10:02 PM
Oh, I meant to say in response to Bob999, that he is right, there are no alleys and the entire tree had to be sawed up and brought partially through my house, and partially through my neighbor's house. But most of it was taken out by rolling a chain link fence back on one side of my neighbor's property through a neighboring condo's
common area. What a mess. The guys who did it worked from 8 am till 6 pm and I am still in awe of them.
Posted by: donatella at April 17, 2007 10:09 PM
By the way don't have chelsea garden center do any work, they areFreakin expensive
Posted by: Anonymous at April 18, 2007 11:00 AM
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