Huge Willow Tree In Brooklyn Garden Could Be Torn Down By Developers

CROWN HEIGHTS, BROOKLYN — An old willow tree in an historic part of Brooklyn is in danger of being torn down by developers looking to renovate the lot it sits on.

The willow towers over the middle of the Imani Community Garden on Schenectady Avenue between Pacific and Dean streets in the Weeksville section of Crown Heights. The space is made up of three plots of land, two of which are owned by the nonprofit New York Restoration Project (NYRP). The third, in the garden's center, was recently bought by a developer, putting the tree's future in jeopardy.

"It’s not right," Greg Todd, a 10-year member of the garden, told Patch. "We have two gardens on either side. We should preserve this for the community."

Around the year 2000, NYRP purchased from the city a cluster of 52 properties in low-income neighborhoods and placed them in a community land trust with the intention of preserving them as public gardens and green spaces.

The three-lot stretch of Schenectady Avenue was fenced off and maintained by the restoration project, which assumed it owned the entire garden – not just two lots on either side. It added a chicken coop and other garden infrastructure, according to Catherine Hall, NYRP's senior vice president and chief operating officer.

In 2013, though, they learned otherwise.

Hall said she got a call notifying her that the middle plot in the garden was going up for auction in a sale brokered by the city because its owner owed taxes. The fact that it wasn't owned by the NYRP shocked the group.

The organization checked the mounds of paperwork from its original sale with the city and realized that it didn't technically own the middle lot. A section of the garden the group had overseen for more than a dozen years didn't even belong to them.

"We were stunned," said Hall, who doesn't know who its actual owner was. "We sort of figured that since there was one fence around the property that it was one space. It was extraordinarily painful to have that realization."

After being sold at auction, the property was sold again last year to a group of investors for $500,000. Those investors want to develop the land, which the developer said would include digging up the historic tree.

Todd and members of the garden have floated several solutions, including trying to swap the lot for a different one in the garden to preserve the tree and keep the garden from splitting in two.

They started an online fundraising campaign that has so far only raised a little more than $2,000.

"As willows go, it's particularly large and spread out," Todd said of the tree. "It’s really a place for people to come in off the street on a hot day. We’ve got chickens in the back, we’ve got a pond with fish in it, we’ve got an orchard. It’s a quiet place in a very noisy neighborhood now."

Mendy Deutsch, who spoke to Patch on behalf of the investors who own the lot the tree sits on, said they had no idea what was on the land when they bought it.

"If I would have known that this is the situation, I wouldn’t do this," he told Patch. "I wouldn’t have bought it. I’m not looking to fight with nobody."

Deutsch said he would be open to a land swap with one of the nearby plots but he hasn't been able to cut a deal with the restoration project. He said the investors would also be interested in swapping with a plot of land at the end of the block on Pacific Street. That lot, though, is owned by the city.

"We’re not here to fight nobody, and we don’t want to do harm to nobody," he told Patch. "But at the same time, they could have bought it in the same way our team bought it.

"Why are they making us look like the bad ones right now? They haven’t come up with any solution."

Hall said she realizes that it's a tough situation.

"We would love nothing more than to save that willow tree. We would love to do a lot swap," she said.

"It’s heartbreaking. We were there in 2000, and I know the community has been there long before. And it’s been used as a resource for all kinds of people in that community for such a long time. It’s excruciating for the people on site."

"I feel bad for the situation," Deutsch, said. "I hope it can be worked out. But at the same time, there comes a certain point like, how long can I sit and wait?"

Lead photo by Marc Torrence