Skip to main content

Posts

Showing posts from February, 2013

3 Street-tree pit soil levels

Depressed soil in a tree pit whose edges indicate that a grate once surrounded this honeylocust. The soil level in this tree pit has been raised with potting soil. Is the bark of this Callery pear rotting behind/beneath the soil? The soil level shown above is at-grade. Little water is pooling in this tree pit on a rainy day. Hopefully the soil level will not be raised around this honeylocust. These three tree pits are located on West Third Street between Thompson Street and LaGuardia Place.

A Park is a Park is Always a Park

The title of this post is taken from the affidavit of former NYC Parks Commissioner Henry Stern in support of the Article 78 lawsuit against the alleged unlawful approval of the NYU 2031 Expansion Plan by NY City and State agencies.  Commissioner Stern argues that although Mercer Playground, LaGuardia Corner Gardens, LaGuardia Park, and Mercer-Houston Dog Run were not not formally "mapped"* as public parks, the fact that they have been used as such confers public-park status on them. Legally, the fact that all four parks have been used as parks continuously, in some instances for decades, is all that’s needed. “These sites exemplify the concept of impliedly dedicated parkland and therefore must be afforded the protections of the Public Trust Doctrine. To fail to do so exalts a quid pro quo, plutocratic form of government, and blatantly disregards the values that state law embodies of accountability and transparency,” says Stern. ( Source : caan2031.org) In fact

Nature in the neighborhood

The title and content of this post is taken from the name of one of my favorite children's books about nature: Nature in the Neighborhood , by Gordon Morrison. The book describes the animals, plants, and habitats associated with each season.  This is not a book review so I won't provide a lot of detail but Morrison begins his tale with the emergence of earthworms in the spring and ends it with rabbit and coyote tracks.  In between are illustrations and natural histories of toads, kestrels, goldfinches and thistle, monarch butterflies and milkweed, and cattails and ferns. Image: Page 18, in Nature in the Neighborhood , by Gordon Morrison Morrison's map of nature in a neighborhood is fantastic and a portion of it is shown above.  I've highlighted some of the natural resources in Greenwich Village and a bit beyond (see nos. 1 and 7), shown below. Image: Selected Natural Resources in Greenwich Village 1. Hudson River Big City Fishing offers a fre