By Lisa Kava
The West 72nd Block Association will host its second annual Community Volunteer Day on Saturday, May 18, from 9:30 a.m. until 11 a.m. Volunteers are needed to plant flowers, help with tree care, and clean up tree beds on West 72nd Street between Columbus and Amsterdam Avenues, and further west between Broadway and West End Avenue.
The volunteers will meet at a welcome table at Verdi Square right in front of the 72nd Street subway station (at Broadway.) The group will then disperse along the block and get to work. Volunteers should bring their own gardening gloves, garbage bags, garbage pickers, and tools, if possible. Partnership for Parks (a public-private partnership between City Parks Foundation and the New York City Parks Department) will provide the plants, mulch, and additional planting tools.
The event is family-friendly and children of all ages are welcome to participate. The block association will also be collecting gently used clothing for those experiencing homelessness. They are particularly in need of men’s clothing and shoes, as well as women’s pants in any size. Clothing donations will go to a small clothing closet at the Manhattan Church of Christ on the Upper East Side.
Advanced registration for the Community Volunteer Day is recommended. You can sign up using this link.
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Several times a week I see adults letting their dogs urinate and defecate in the tree beds and have seen dogs inside fenced tree beds planted with flowers, as their owners watch. The old saying, “This place has gone to the dogs,” has come true. Sadly, along with the empty store fronts and litter, it’s another example of the demise of the Bloomingdale and Manhattan Valley neighborhoods.
Most dog owners are very conscientious about poop pick up. The tree garden problem is chronic, however. Dogs love any little patch of soil, and when they hop in, owners want them to get their business done. Here is a dog lover’s plea to city owners: please never allow this in any planted space!! We all benefit from every neighbor who tends a tree garden. Protect that work! Those precious bits of green should be allowed to bring joy to everyone, all season. They should never be your dog’s toilet! It is not hard to train a dog to the curb – I’ve done it – or to insist they hop right out of those gardens when they hop in. They are just as adorable and quick when they step off a curb behind a parked car and do their business there. Take them to dog runs and parks to enjoy runs, pees and poops in the dirt and grass. If you have a city dog, you must always clean up – that’s the deal. Now , if we could only find the genius who will figure a way to safely compost dog waste for non-edible plants and shrubs…that would be a better problem to worry about.
Pre Covid I was walking a friend’s dogs and someone walked up to me and DEMANDED that I clean up after them. I pulled out a full roll of bags from my pocket to show that I had every intention of doing so. Still it was a little unnerving having a stranger screaming at me and assuming that I wasn’t cleaning up. I remember the days of the pooper-scooper laws. If that’s not in existence anymore then I suppose we all just need to speak up when we see these things happening.
It is in existence, no one cares though.