The sitting area at 74 St and 57 Ave is across the street from Maspeth HS and is regularly maintained by NYC Parks and they do a good job coming each week to clean and cut the grass and do plantings or prune trees. They maintain a small area beyond the benches, the rest of the area up to the CSX tracks is maintained by NYSDOT and they come once a year with a tractor and ride thru the trees and cut to the weeds down. They don’t touch the trees, and many needed pruning.

I am a citizen tree pruner and always carry my clippers with me and if I didn’t trim the trees along the sidewalk no one would be able to walk there, I’ve been doing it for years. The weeds were 4 feet high along with garbage from dumping and graffiti is on the LIE wall. So, it was looking bad, and it was already the end of October and not looking like NYSDOT will be coming so I called Assemblyman Raga and Councilman Holden and within two weeks NYCDOT came and cut the weeds and pruned the trees and it looks much better.

I would like to see the area taken over by NYC Parks; they do a good job in our parks and green spaces on a regular basis; not just ride through on a tractor once a year. I’ve contacted both elected leaders about the proposal, so we’ll have to wait and see.

Richard Polgar
Maspeth