BY SCOTTT STIFFLER | With its stretches of subway grating flanked by a windowless Con Edison substation and a busy bike lane, Seventh Avenue between West 18th and 19th Streets has long been in need of beautification. While the restaurants and residential buildings of surrounding blocks beckon, this barren, concrete anomaly can’t claim so much as a single shrub, plant, or bush with which to entice. (The nutrient-rich soil necessary for such things has long been supplanted by the 1 Train, running directly below.)
All that changed last week, with the arrival of five potted trees placed close to the bike lane and spaced evenly from one end of the block to the next. Installeld by The Horticultural Society of New York (The Hort), the 60″x42″ planters are filled with “a mix of potting soil and compost. We also use small stones at the base of the planter to ensure proper drainage,” explained Lauren Sadowsky, Business Development Manager, The Hort. Two species–Serviceberry and Redbud–were planted, “both of which,” noted Sadowsky, “are flowering trees.”
The trees didn’t exactly sprout up overnight. “It all started with Paul Groncki of the 100 West 16th Street Block Association writing years ago to City Council Member Erik Bottcher and asking, ‘What can we do to make this block look better?,’ ” recalled 100 West 19th/20th Street Block Association Chair Sally Greenspan, noting Groncki “then reached out to CCBA [the Council of Chelsea Block Associations] with the same question.”…