Friday, December 14, 2007

Douglaston tree screen

An open letter to MTA CEO Elliot Sander:

...The recent tree clearing effort by the LIRR near the Douglaston train station causes my husband and me a lot of misery.

My husband, a retired NYC homicide detective, and I have lived and raised our family in our apartment overlooking the Douglaston train station for 37 years. You can see our apartment over Il Toscano's Restaurant from the train platform.

The trees provided privacy, reduced the noise level and softened the glare from the all night platform lights. We truly enjoyed our little bit of paradise, just 50-feet from the LIRR tracks. Now, instead of greenery, we see the ugly graffiti on the Douglaston Parkway overpass, are subject to constant noise and light pollution and are forced to keep our blinds clossed for a moment of privacy. It really is terrible.

No one can undo the devastation of a very poorly planned tree clearing effort. However, there are three things you can do to restore some of our quality of life:

1. Clean up the debris from the tree cutting. It's a mess.

2. Remove the graffiti on the Douglaston Parkway overpass.

3. Plant several large evergreen or other trees between our building and the tracks to provide some screening.

These three steps are easy and inexpensive for the LIRR and will help screen the constant noise and light pollution. Please call me with the dates you will begin these steps to restore our environment.

Anne McNamee
Douglaston

Photo from Forgotten-NY.com

9 comments:

verdi said...

Although these tree clearings were not ordered
by Mayor Dumb-berg or his equally assinine
parks commissioner Adrian Benepe.......
they do fall in line with NYC's covert mission
(tree butchering) ......a browner dirtier city!

I thought we were supposed
to be looking forward to a "greener New York"
by 2030!

Yeah.....sure! I don't need somebody else to
jerk my chain. I can do it myself.....thank you!

Anonymous said...

Queens.....
It's where the "elite" meet to eat
(yeccch.... "mystery meat") !

Hey....
maybe it's better to stick to the
"whine 'n cheez" available at those
expensive, highly publicized
"preservation" conferences.....usually held
in Manhattan.

And it's always.....
"Please bring your checkbooks along
in case you're in the mood to feel generous".

We'll be glad to accept your outer borough contributions and give you little in return
because we threw the party!

Anonymous said...

Yeah, but you live in Queens. The only people that really count are the tweeded.

Let’s walk though the clubhouse check list ....

Did you come from a third world country?

Do you have more kids than you can afford to raise?

Are their girlfriends and out of wedlock kids living with you?

Your sister and her family (along with a friend or two from your village) - are they living with you?

Are there members of your little group with 'special needs' (you know the ones that gets headlines in the Trib or Courier)?

Is your family hygiene optional, and is the bare ground a viable recycle center for your building (you know, after a few rains, everything sinks into the mud)?

Do you have hanging junkyards?

Do you drive an SUV and need to exhibit your macho spirit?

Do you have parties to 5 AM (extra credit if they last to the second or third day)?

Do your kids listen to rap, slink around without shoe laces and instead of attending school, stand in the doorways of delis, and like red or blue colors?

Are your daughters overweight, and wear tight clothes that show their wavy curvy bodies (the folds of brown fat that peek out from their short tops get extra points), and your boys, well do they grab at their crotch as they whistle at the "ho"s when they walk by?

Do your brother and his buddies hang out on street corners waiting for work?

Are paying taxes optional and a bank account not needed?

Do you talk loudly into your cell phone?

How much graffiti is on your building?

Does your landlord live on Long Island and has he not invested anything in your building since Eisenhower was in the White House?

DO YOU VOTE DEMOCRATIC (that is if you are a citizen, an optional status when it comes to getting taxpayer supplied benefits)?

Sooo .... Mostly no? What is your problem? Nobody that is important cares about your problems.

Why are you still here in Queens?

Anonymous said...

You forget eating unmentionable food out of packages that are unintelligible in international (read third world) markets that accept food stamps and have rows of wavy flags on the roof featuring the Caribbean, African, South American, and south Asian countries.

Anonymous said...

Ha Ha Queens Crap! It seems that 30 years of carefully nurtured myths by the clubhouse are being demolished by a few postings in your blog. You show the bullshit for what it is.

Keep up the good work! You are a breath of fresh air in Queens!

Anonymous said...

Democratic Dictionary:

Citizenship Test --

(see postings above)

Anonymous said...

Disguise yourself
as some new clubhouse fodder
that can hardly speak any English.

Then you'll be certain
to get your fair share more quickly.

Remember.....

"THE SERVICES THAT ARE NEEDED.....
FIRST GO TO THE TWEEDED" !

parnell said...

One of the excuses the MTA uses to justify the tree killing is that falling leaves interfere with the train brakes.

This poster has a good idea in planting evergreens, I doubt pine needles would have that effect.

That said, I'm sure they would then go on to the next excuse.

BTW, if you compare the many tree planting campaigns underway around the world, this Mayors plan to plant 1 million new trees over 10 years is not bold at all. Many jurisdictions with smaller populations are doing ten times that.

Anonymous said...

Most of the trees are for Manhattan. I saw pictures of the streetscapes after congestion pricing and all the outer B folks are driving off the Manhattan streets.

More landscaping, fewer lanes, more benches .... and lots and lots of trees!

Sort of like Hunters Point. The rest of the borough is going to hell and they put in a $6 million bikeway for the yuppies.