Wind was tree-mendous

West wind gusts that approached 45-miles-per-hour on Wednesday, October 7 were just too much for a 74-year-old maple tree in Bayside Hills.
After standing at the corner of 53rd Avenue and 214th Street since the homes around it were first built, the behemoth crashed eastward at 4 p.m., blocking the roadway and both sidewalks on the street.
The windstorm knocked out power to some 3,000 Con Ed customers, according to spokesperson Alfonso Quiroz. “It was mostly above-ground lines; we’d fix one and another one would get damaged – it was like that all day,” he said.
Clear on the other side of the borough, police in the 106th Precinct said that 10 cars were reported damaged by falling tree limbs, with many stories starting the same way they did in Bayside.
“I was in the kitchen when I heard this big bang,” said Bess Maromaty, who has lived on 214th Street – one house in from the corner – since 1952. “I went out my front door and the tree was on my neighbor’s lawn.”
A housekeeper leaving the third house on the block narrowly escaped death. “She was on her way home and the tree fell behind her,” Maromaty said. “She’s not here today.”
Neighbors were commiserating over the event.
Gaspar Arisi and his son Giovanni, 20 were cutting up large branches into short pieces with a chainsaw and loading them on a pick-up truck – respectively.
“I was driving my kids to school [at St. Robert Bellarmine] when I saw the tree down. I figured – hey, the people want it off their lawn, the street has to be opened and I could use the firewood,” said the senior Arisi with a smile. “We all gotta’ do our part.”
The city takes mixed view of such activities, according to a spokesperson for the Department of Parks and Recreation.
“It isn’t illegal to cut up a fallen or dead tree,” explained spokesperson Phil Abramson. “We advise homeowners to be careful – it’s dangerous work –and stack the pieces at the curb for removal by the Department.”
Abramson said that the city discourages “transporting or using it for firewood,” because of the danger that an Asian Long-horned Beetle may have left larvae inside the tree. “They are very destructive and we’ve been fighting them,” he said adding, “We chip up all the wood we pick up as a precaution.”
Joann Baggio owns the house next to where the fallen tree stood, and said she had to refinance her home after roots from the large tree on her front lawn blocked her sewer line – and her sidewalk, walkway and front stoop had to be demolished to repair it.
“The city pruned the tree two years ago but it looks unbalanced,” Baggio worried. “I’d like to cut it down before it falls over.”
Abramson pointed out that any tree within 15 feet of the curb “is considered a street tree and the penalty for destroying, defacing or abusing” a street tree is $1,000.
“That’s now the oldest tree on the block; It was planted in 1935,” Maromaty said, pointing to the last tall maple, in front of Baggio’s house. “These maple trees only live about 75 years,” Arisi noted. Everyone paused for a moment, their mental wheels turning.
“Oh, great,” Baggio sighed.