By DAVID GREENE

Timber!

Fifteen months of haranguing, calling 311 and cajoling helped clear a giant tree stump that remained a neighborhood hazard in Bedford Park

ever since Superstorm Sandy knocked out the tree that existed beforehand.

Resident Hector Rivera recalled the giant tree outside of 17 E. 198th St. dangerously tilted to the other side of the street where it eventually came down on a house when the storm hit. A picture of the damaged tree can still be viewed on Google Maps.

Rivera recalled, “The tree hit the top of the home, and because of the branches, the owner of the home was trapped inside.” The street would remain closed off to traffic for several days.

 

Superstorm Sandy’s raging winds caused the tree to snap in two, with its upper portion toppling onto a two-story home. The lower portion smashed the hood of a car parked along

East 198th Street, its roots ripping up the concrete. This obstructed the roadway on East 198th Street, diverting traffic to parallel streets. The FDNY was called in to chop the tree down days after Sandy, with crews from the city Parks  Department later picking up the pieces and carting it away. But the stump remained, leaving residents to declare the work unfinished.

Months went by. The stump had stood affixed to the ground, narrowly clearing the sidewalk for pedestrians, though it attracted rats and litterers who used the tree stump as a dumping ground. Neighbors continued to press the city for resolve after reports of neighbors tripping to the ground, often at

night where the street is barely lit. But relief did come on Jan. 13 when the Parks Department removed the stump, later patching the hole with dirt.

But the removal of the tree has caused a whole new set of problems, mainly what to do with the broken sidewalk. Neighbor Kajun Corporan was thrilled to see the stump removed, though she urged that the sidewalk be fixed since “people are still tripping over the broken sidewalk.” “There are a lot of old people in the area,” she said, pointing to the narrow sidewalk abutting the hole.

A request for comment from the Parks Department was not immediately returned.

During a conversation with a Parks Department official back in October regarding the repeated telephone and e-mail requests, the official stated, “If we received it (the request) we should have responded… we do answer e-mails, we do want to work with you.”

Meanwhile, Parks officials have so far planted more than 820,000 new trees as part of

the MillionTreesNYC initiative, while tree stumps from fallen or dead trees remain across the borough and around the city, including many along both ends of Mosholu Parkway