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Greening the Newkirk Avenue Corridor

Help the Newkirk Cares Collaborative care for street trees along Newkirk Avenue!

Leader

Oksana Mironova

Location

Newkirk Avenue and Marlborough Road Brooklyn, NY NY

About the project

The Newkirk Cares Collaborative is planning to build tree guards to protect the tree pits along Newkirk Avenue, from Ocean Parkway to Ocean Avenue. The tree pits do not currently have guards, and often collect garbage. A few years ago, two new trees were planted on the block and died due to mistreatment. The trees were recently replanted, and we want to encourage our community to notice and care for them. In addition to tree guards, we will also conduct street tree care and clean out the tree pits. Further, we will treat the tree pits with compost, and plant flowers. We received a grant from the Citizens Committee for New York City, which will fund the construction of the tree guards. We are looking for funding to buy flower bulbs for this project.

Newkirk Avenue is an extremely active street, with pedestrians on their way to the subway, as well as residents socializing, and kids playing on the street.  We would like to both beautify the street with flowers, and protect the current trees from any harm with this project. We envision creating a uniform Newkirk Avenue corridor with wooden tree guards built by residents, and flowers in the tree beds.

The Newkirk Cares Collaborative is working with Compost for Brooklyn and the Flatbush Development Corporation on this project. Further we have received support from the Newkirk Avenue Merchants Association, Assemblymember Rhoda Jacobs’ Office, Assemblymember Jim Brennan’s Office, Community Board 14 and the Newkirk Area Neighborhood Association.

The Steps

We will be hosting monthly street tree care days for the community, on April 15th, and May 20th,  June 24th. On these days, we will build tree guards, compost the tree beds, water and care for the street trees. We hope that our workdays will serve not only an important public service for our neighborhood, but also encourage collaboration among different members of our community. Our neighborhood is incredibly diverse - according to the Department of City Planning City of Neighborhoods Report for CD 14, our neighborhood has Russian, Spanish, French Creole, Chinese, Urdu, Yiddish, Hebrew, Polish, Vietnamese, Arabic, Korean, Persian, Serbo-Croatian, Greek, and Italian speakers, among others. We have been reaching out to schools, faith based organizations, businesses and community groups about our street tree care days, to reach as diverse of an audience as possible.

Why we‘re doing it

Our group came together to respond to the inequity between the care and management of two arterial streets in our neighborhood. Newkirk Avenue borders Victorian Flatbush, a neighborhood that has experienced rapid gentrification in the past fifteen years. Streets that are located in the heart of Victorian Flatbush receive a lot of attention and amenities, making them more inviting and pleasant for the community. In the past few years, the commercial thoroughfare of Victorian Flatbush– Cortelyou Road – has added new street furniture, including benches, bike racks, and wastebaskets; received excellent street tree care; and developed a well-attended farmers market.

Newkirk Avenue, located in Flatbush proper, has largely been neglected. Like Cortelyou Road, Newkirk Avenue is very vibrant. The street is a major thoroughfare, used to get to the subway station. It has a lot of pedestrian activity and an active street life. It is also in dire need of basic street improvements such as tree care.  

          

$295.00 still needed of $481.00