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Ridge residents: Vandals are tagging up our trees

A group of teens spray-painted more than a half dozen trees on 70th Street in Bay Ridge earlier this month — apparently not caring that neighbors saw them mark up the sycamores and ash trees that lined the block from their windows.

The vandals blitzed the block between Narrows Avenue and Colonial Road on Sept. 13, stunning residents living on the usually sleepy street.

“Who does this, some kind of gang?” asked Marilin Mele, who lives around the corner.

Others were outraged when they saw the nonsensical blue tags left behind, claiming that marring a tree affects the neighborhood both aesthetically and emotionally.

“It defaces a beautiful tree in a pretty neighborhood,” said Susan Montague, who had a tree in front of her home tagged.

Cops have yet to identify the markings, but some 70th Street residents have shrugged off the vandalism as some kind of teenage prank.

“These kids probably had too many Coronas and said ‘Hey, let’s hit this tree,’ and then were like ‘Hey, let’s this next one,’ and so on,” said resident Kevin Ortiz, who had a tree directly in front of his home vandalized.

One resident, who wished not to be named, claimed that she witnessed the vandalism, but didn’t contact the police because she was unable to take a photo of the would-be taggers, which she described as a group of six preteen boys. She said she does not believe the youths live in the neighborhood, but she’s seen them hanging around the block over the past year.

Residents are hoping that their neighbors clean the tags off the trees in front of their home before the vandals return.

“Other people will see this and do more graffiti on top of it,” Mele said.

Members of the NYPD’s Anti-Graffiti task force would not comment for this story. Calls to the 68th Precinct were not returned by our midnight deadline.