A dangerously heavy branch finally broke off a tree on Kimball Street on Aug. 9, after the city ignored months of calls from nearby homeowners to prune it, and its just lucky that it didn’t fall on one of the kids who play on the block, said one resident.
“I was afraid it’s going to hit a child or destroy someone’s car — my grandkids are always playing outside,” said Kimball Street resident Rita Gioia, who has been constantly calling on the Park Department since early May to trim the tree outside her home between Avenues U and T. “I wouldn’t be a pain in the butt if I didn’t think it was dangerous.”
Gioia first put the call out to the Parks Department on May 1 because of a threateningly loose limb, but the city agency didn’t respond for a month, so she instead had to enlist the help of some of New York’s Bravest to take an ax to the branches on May 31.
The Parks Department said its arborists would come to check out the tree’s other precarious limbs by July 1 — but that never happened, according to Gioia.
“They never did,” she said. “All I want them to do is come check the branches I think are going to fall — I don’t think I’m asking too much. Something has to be done before something happens.”
Something nearly did on Aug. 9, when a small gust of wind wrenched off a thick branch which landed just inches from a parked car, in an area where the local kids frequently play. The bough was so bulky that Gioia’s neighbors had to help her chop it up to haul it off, she said.
“This one fell on its own,” she said. “This was heavy.”
But the Parks Department shouldn’t wait for an accident to take action about dangerous tree limbs — such as the tragic incident in Central Park on Aug. 15 when the massive tree toppled over onto a mother and three children — said another Kimball Street resident.
“I was just going to park under that tree just now and I said, ‘nope,’ ” said Jeffrey Diamond. “It was a big branch, considering today a tree just fell in Central Park, they should be really up on this stuff.”
The Parks Department said the problematic Kimball Street tree is in good condition and not a risk — despite the falling branch — but its tree surgeons still plan to prune the tree within the next month, a spokeswoman said.
“Our arborists are experts and take many factors into consideration when determining whether emergency pruning is needed. Risk is determined by the likelihood of a branch hitting a target and the consequence of that impact,” she said. “This tree was found to be low risk and in good condition, and following a May 17th inspection, a work order to prune for deadwood was created.”
But three months after the work order was issued, the work remains undone.
