The residents of Wallace Avenue feel safer now that a tall dead tree has been removed.
Recently property owner 750 LLC hired contractors to take down the tree from the lot at 2110 Wallace Avenue that many felt posed a danger.
“The tree was diseased,” said Oscar Ruiz, president of the tenant association at neighboring 758 Pelham Parkway South. “Pieces were falling down. Everyday there was debris on the sidewalk and if it was windy, pieces were flying down everywhere. One day a large branch came down right where a tenant normally parks his car. It could have caused serious damage.”
According to Ruiz, the tree was in such bad shape, it took two days for the contractor to take the tree down, using special equipment.
“It could have snapped so easily, so he took it down from the top, piece by piece,” he said.
For several years Pelham Parkway residents worried about the tree’s condition.
“If you live here, you walk past ther,e and you see it all the time,” said Edith Blitzer, president of Pelham Parkway South Neighborhood Association. “It was rotting and there was fungus all over it. We were concerned for quite a while.”
A few weeks ago, Councilman Jimmy Vacca took notice of the tree during a walk-through of the neighborhood with the PPSNA. Vacca approached the property owner, who has ties to the infamous slumlord Jacob Selechnik, about the hazardous tree, but to no avail. He brought the matter up with the proper city agencies, and soon the owner agreed to remove it.
“We did not want to wait for the whole city process, so we wrote a letter to the owner and pushed city officials to take action. The owner finally took it down because we put pressure on the city, and the city put pressure on him,” Vacca said. “This is good news for the Pelham Parkway neighborhood, but we’ll continue to monitor that lot because it is still a concern.”
While the tree is gone, the lot remains an eye-sore, residents said. According to Ruiz, nobody maintains the property, and it has fallen into disrepair. The city has even been forced to bait the area because of a growing rat population.
“People throw trash in there. We’ve had a lot of problems,” Ruiz said. “The lot is dirty. There are rats. He’s not doing anything to maintain the property.”
When the contractor took down the dead tree, they also took down about five others that were not diseased, or any concern for the community. Ruiz hopes that means the property owner will turn the lot into something good for the community.
“We had concerns about it, but it’s safe now that the tree is gone,” he said. “One worry is down, but now we need the owner to clean up the lot.”
