High winds drive Heights trees to ground, blocking Promenade, destroying old garden fence on Grace Court
The brief brush with hurricane Tropical Storm Isaias as it tore through Brooklyn Heights Tuesday afternoon uprooted some huge trees in key locations. Streets, driveways and stoops were covered with stray heavy branches, hurled around as autumn leaves are in ordinary fall gusting.
Police barricades and a few improvised street dining areas were blown over like styrofoam cups. “Is the clean-up the purview of Sanitation or Parks Department?” some asked. The major upheaval around the Promenade and Pierrepont Playground are clearly Parks Department; most other street incursions are Sanitation fodder.
“This is a mulch-lover’s boon,” said one passerby, awestruck by the crushed wall along a Grace Court garden, bordering Hicks Street, and the debris of a tree probably half a century old.