Authorities said they were searching for vandals who uprooted nearly 300 freshly planted trees in a Queens park to make way for a DIY dirt bike track.
The saplings and shrubs were planted across 5,000 square feet of Kissena Park in Flushing, near a cycling velodrome. Parkgoers discovered the destruction – conservatively estimated to have resulted in the loss of $15,000-worth of trees – earlier this month, officials said.
Photos of the field show numerous holes of overturned soil next to bumpy paths that look to have been used by off-road bikes. City Parks Commissioner Sue Donoghue said hundreds of volunteers had worked on planting trees in the park over the last few years.
“They were obviously devastated. This is very much an area that they take great pride in,” Donoghue said. “The ground cover was very much distributed. The soil was disturbed. It looked like people were either creating trails, creating jumps.”
The Parks Department said in a statement that the incident had been reported to the NYPD.
City Councilmember Sandra Ung from Queens and Donoghue held a press conference Monday urging anyone with information on the vandals behind the arborcide to come forward.
“Either someone or a group of individuals has taken it upon themselves to excavate land to create what appears to be a well-planned track, destroying 300 recently planted trees in the process,” Ung said in a statement, adding the crime amounted to a felony. “We know that there are residents who enjoy walking these trails on a regular basis, and we are urging them to contact either the Parks Department or NYPD if they saw any suspicious activity in the past week.”
The Parks Department could not say whether officials suspected the dirt paths were for motorized dirt bikes or mountain bikes. Streetsblog first reported on the vandalism Sunday.
Donoghue said the location of the DIY track was “definitely ironic,” given its proximity to the Kissena Velodrome. That track, built in 1962, is a popular destination for cyclists of all skill levels.
“It’s so unfortunate that people would use this area that was obviously planted with so many brand new trees for this kind of activity,” Donoghue said. “Trees are so essential to our city.”
