Tonight: Vox Pop Celebrates Three Years

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The party starts at 7 PM and runs until about 11 or so. We have a great new menu, and will be serving samples from it all night. Let us buy you a beer. Please stop by and raise a glass to the past, present and future of the Vox Pop movement.
– Sander Hicks to FDCOnline

Three years ago today, Ross, Holley and I opened the doors here, with the help of Tom Kiely, Mom and Pop Hicks, David Anderson, Harry Anderson, Danielle DeCerbo, Michael and Katura Messina.

We continue to run one of the most unique businesses in the country, thanks to a great staff. I’m constantly in awe at how resilient, positive, and upbeat our roster of baristas is. They are professional happiness makers. I’m proud to be a part of this team.

We have a fun little party planned for tonight. Holley will sing and play guitar, as will local legend Paul De Coster, various folks from the open mike, and Hell’s Kitchen Rock Legend Tim Young. Also, I will personally hand in a rare solo performance, singing and playing guitar, with some new Shins covers I have worked up. (It’s appropriate, because we built the place listening to the New Mexico band The Shins A LOT on CD. It’s very catchy, relevant, plaintive stuff.)

Links

Vox Pop
[where: Vox Pop, 1022 Cortelyou Road, Brooklyn, NY 11218]

BBG DDD offers 20% off for Garden Members

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Starting next Friday, November 23 through Sunday, December 2, the Brooklyn Botanic Garden (BBG) holds their annual Members’ Double Discount Days (DDD). Earlier this year, BBG opened a new Gift Shop, separate from the hard-core Garden Shop, greatly increasing their retail space. During this period, members receive 20% off all purchases in the Gift Shop, Garden Shop, or when shopping online.

One of the benefits of BBG membership, BBG members always receive a 10% discount for all purchases. For this limited time, the discount is doubled. Other benefits available to all members include free admission to the Garden and invitations to members-only events such as the annual Plant Sale Preview, an orgy of horticultural acquisitiveness. Individual memberships start at $40.

Event, Tomorrow, 11/14: Audubon Lecture with Parks Commisioner Benepe

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I’m already engaged tomorrow evening, but this looks interesting:

[Parks] Commissioner [Adrian] Benepe will discuss New York City’s current period of transformation and expansion of its parks. The Department of Parks and Recreation is managing the biggest capital investment in New York City’s parks since the 1930s. Thanks to Mayor Bloomberg’s PlaNYC initiative, Parks is receiving an additional $1.2 billion to expand active recreation and for greening initiatives. Commissioner Benepe will explain these projects and discuss their role in creating a greener, more sustainable city.
– Creating a Greener NYC, NYC Audubon Events

Via Save Ridgewood Reservoir

Adrian Benepe has worked for the last 28 years protecting and enhancing New York City’s natural and historic beauty. Since his appointment as Commissioner of the Department of Parks & Recreation by Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg on January 25, 2002, he has focused on improving park facilities and programs for children and developing new waterfront parks and greenways.

Location: Helen Mills Theater at 137-139 West 26th Street (6th & 7th Ave)
Directions: 1, N, R, W to 28th St.; F, V to 23rd St.

Links

New York City Audubon
Helen Mills Theater

[where: Helen Mills Theater, 137-139 West 26th Street, New York, NY, 10001]

Brooklyn’s Trees, a new Flickr photo group

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Welcome, Festival of the Trees visitors! Go see the photos in Brooklyn’s Trees. If you like what you see, come back here and read about it, and check out my other posts on Urban Foresty and Trees in general.

Brooklyn’s Trees is a Flickr photo pool I started to “share and celebrate Brooklyn’s trees through photography.” The response has been great, and the submissions are beautiful and diverse.



I’ve adapted a definition of “trees” from Festival of the Trees:

“Trees” are defined as any woody plant species that regularly exceed three meters in height; exceptions might include banana “trees” which are not woody plants. We are interested in trees in the concrete rather than in the abstract, so the “cloud trees” at the intersection of Ocean and Flatbush Avenues, for example, are out.

Any photographs of or about trees in Brooklyn are welcomed, including those on our streets, in our parks, gardens, and other public spaces, and on private property. Young trees, dead trees, shadows or reflections of trees are all in the spirit of this group. Photos should be “safe” as defined by Flickr.

Gardeners for Recovery is on its way!

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[Update 2007.11.20: Added clarification that cobblestones will not be marked.]

Cobblestones, Van Dyke Street, Red Hook, Brooklyn
Cobblestones, Van Dyke Street

The Gardeners for Recovery Cobblestone Campaign has received its first contribution. The fund now stands at $100, one-fifth of the minimum amount needed for a cobblestone, and one-tenth of the way toward the goal of $1,000. See the thermometer at the top of the sidebar.

Gardeners for Recovery is a Cobblestone Campaign for the National September 11 Memorial at the World Trade Center. Gardeners for Recovery recognize the importance of gardens and gardening for individual, community, and global healing and recovery.

The contribution was in the amount of $50. I matched it, to bring us to $100. I will match the first $500 contributed, to bring us to the goal of $1,000.

Out of respect for the victims of September 11, cobblestones will not be inscribed with donor names or any other markings. When the Memorial is completed, we will be able to identify the exact location of our cobblestone by using a kiosk on the Memorial Plaza.

If you would like to make a contribution, please visit the Gardeners for Recovery Cobblestone Campaign home page, then click the DONATE NOW button. This lets you contribute online, anonymously and securely, using a major credit card. If the National Tour visits your city or town, you can also contribute there; just let them know you’re contributing to the Gardeners for Recovery Cobblestone Campaign, so I can match it.

Related Posts

Announcing the Gardeners for Recovery Cobblestone Campaign, September 28
Gardeners for Recovery, September 11

Links

Gardeners for Recovery Cobblestone Campaign home page
National Tour Cities and Dates
National September 11 Memorial Museum

Basic Research: The State of the Forest in New York City

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Updated 2007.11.13: Added direct links to all resolutions of the full report.

Thanks to a recent post on Save Ridgewood Reservoir, I learned of the existence of a comprehensive report on NYC’s street trees. This technical report was created by the Center for Urban Forest Research and addressed to Parks Commissioner Adrian Benepe in April of this year. The report provides 72 pages of detailed, quantitative analysis of the state of NYC’s urban forest.

Relative age distribution of all NYC street trees by borough
Relative age distribution of all NYC street trees by borough

A find like this is a source of pleasure indescribable to someone who’s not already a tree-hugging geek such as myself. More important, it provides much-needed reference information for review and discussion of policy and planning, such as the Million Trees initiative, and DCP’s recent Yards Text Amendment proposal.

The city conducted a street tree census, Trees Count, in 2005-2006. The more accessible 12-page report [PDF] from that effort summarizes the numbers, types, sizes and conditions of street trees throughout NYC and by each borough. Here are some highlights for Brooklyn:

  • Number of trees: 142,747
  • Number of trees in 1995-1996 census: 112,400
  • %Change over 10 years: 27%
  • Most common street tree: London Plane, Platanus × hispanica (23.6%)
  • The top five most common trees account for 58% of the street trees.
  • Of Brooklyn Community Boards, CB14 tied with CB7 as having the highest percentage of tree canopy coverage.
  • Of Brooklyn Community Boards, CB14 had the third smallest increase of street trees, only 10%, followed by CB16 at 7% and CB17 at 5%
  • 38% of Brooklyn’s street trees have “infrastructure conflicts,” such as tree lights, choking wires and grates, and close paving.
  • The annual economic benefit of Brooklyn’s trees, considering property values, stormwater runoff, energy savings, air quality, and carbon sequestration, is $31,030,839.

Related posts

Center for Urban Forest Research
Preserving Livable Streets, November 7
Victorian Flatbush at risk from inappropriate zoning, October 23
Carolina Silverbell: One of a Million, October 9
State of Flatbush/Midwood, October 5
1M Trees in 10 Years, April 10
How Much is a Street Tree Worth, April 9
Landscape and Politics in Brooklyn’s City Council District 40, February 14
NASA Maps NYC’s Heat Island, August 1, 2006

Links

The full report – New York City, New York Municipal Forest Resource Analysis – is available as a PDF/Acrobat document from Parks and CUFR in different resolutions: smaller, lower resolution for online viewing, or larger, higher resolution to download for offline viewing or printing.

  • Read it now from CUFR (1.4MB) or Parks (2.4MB)
  • Save it for later from CUFR (13MB)

Trees Count (Parks)
Trees & Greenstreets (Parks)
Million Trees NYC
Yards Text Amendment (DCP)
Center for Urban Forest Research (CUFR)

Resource: Center for Urban Forest Research

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Another resource I just discovered, the Center for Urban Forest Research (CUFR) is a project of the Pacific Southwest Research Station of the USDA Forest Service. Although based in California, CUFR’s research and products are applicable to most urbanized environments.

Our research demonstrates new ways in which trees add value to communities. We convert our results into real dollars and cents in order to stimulate more investment in trees. Using our research results, we create new methods and strategies for managing and caring for community forests to help managers optimize the benefits and investment value of their community forest.
– Our Research, CUFR

Most of our research falls into five major categories: Benefits and Costs, Energy Conservation, Air Quality, Water Resources, and Fire. However, we are not limited to those five categories. Additional research focuses on Urban Forest Policy and Management, Tree Stewardship, Biometrics, Infrastructure Conflicts, and Urban-Wildland Interface.

Links

Center for Urban Forest Research
Pacific Southwest Research Station
USDA Forest Service

Resource: The Sustainable Sites Initiative

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While doing some research for a post on NYC’s street trees, I just discovered the Sustainable Sites Initiative:

The Sustainable Sites Initiative is an interdisciplinary partnership between the American Society of Landscape Architects, the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center, the United States Botanic Garden and a diverse group of stakeholder organizations to develop guidelines and standards for landscape sustainability. The motivation behind this initiative stems from the desire to protect and enhance the ability of landscapes to provide services such as climate regulation, clean air and water, and improved quality of life. Sustainable Sites™ is a cooperative effort with the intention of supplementing existing green building and landscape guidelines as well as becoming a stand-alone tool for site sustainability.

On November 1, they released a Preliminary Report on the Standards and Guidelines for Sustainable Sites. The full report [PDF] is 107 pages and addresses several dimensions of landscape design, including hydrology (water), vegetation, soil, and materials (hardscape). They are now for which they are seeking “input on all aspects of the content.” Their goal is to release an updated version in October of 2008, completing the final report by May 2009.

This report makes three overarching recommendations for sustainable land development and management: 1) assemble a group of knowledgeable and diverse professionals to form an integrated project team, 2) prior to making decisions, conduct a complete and thorough assessment of the site, and 3) integrate land practices that replicate the functions of healthy ecological systems.

Sustainable land practices can support the functions of healthy systems and harness natural processes to provide environmental benefits. The Sustainable Sites Initiative is aimed at providing the land development and maintenance industries with the tools to move toward a more sustainable future.

The Web site provides synopses of the benefits of sustainable sites and how to implement them. The Human Well-Being section provides insight into the particular importance of living, green spaces for urban populations:

A series of studies of inner-city neighborhoods [Kuo, F.E. 2003. The role of arboriculture in a healthy social ecology. Journal of Arboriculture 29, 3:148-155] finds that green spaces with trees contribute to healthier, more supportive patterns of interrelations among residents, including greater sharing of resources.

Links

The Sustainable Sites Initiative
American Society of Landscape Architects
Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center
United States Botanic Garden

The Daffodil Project on Cortelyou Road

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Many hands make light work
DSC_6034
Today we planted the last of 1,000 Daffodils and 400 Crocus along Cortelyou Road. Over two weekends, we covered every block from the Q subway stop to Coney Island Avenue. We were able to plant all but one of the new tree pits, running out of bulbs before the last one.

Observe: Experts at work
DSC_6042

This weekend’s volunteers included:

  • Aowyn
  • Barzeli
  • Mela
  • Jan A.
  • Jan R.
  • John
  • Linda
  • Matt
  • Ronan
  • Sally
  • Susan

I know I’ve left out at least one name. If I’ve omitted or misspelled your name, please let me know.

Cortelyou Gothic
DSC_6047

And again this weekend, this was an opportunity or me to meet neighbors for the first time. The flowers may bloom next Spring, and they may multiply over the years. The sustained consequences of the Daffodil Project are the communities it helps to build.

Related Posts

The Daffodil Project Plantings on Cortelyou Road, November 4
1,000 Daffodils for Cortelyou Road, October 27
The Daffodil Project: Grief & Gardening #5, November 26, 2006

Links

The Daffodil Project