Great Neck Village to take down, replace oddly trimmed trees

For the past few years, those driving on Middle Neck Road in Great Neck have been treated to an unusual flourish of foliage: Trees cut like Y’s, L’s and J’s.

The trees, concentrated between Piccadilly Road and Hicks Lane, had been carved into the funky shapes by PSEG Long Island to put a stop to branches intermingling with electrical wires, which had caused some outages, Great Neck Mayor Pedram Bral said.

The village recently removed seven of the trees — oaks and sycamores — and plans to replace them with a new species, to be determined, that won’t grow as tall.

“They were the wrong trees to be planted 50 years ago — maybe more than 50 years ago,” Bral said in an interview. “They get too tall, they get into the wires, they create issues. Rightfully so, PSEG has to make sure they don’t fall on the wires.”

The situation is not unique to Great Neck. PSEG Long Island has a tree-trimming program with established protocols: Trees are pruned to create clearance of 10 feet below power lines, 8 feet on the sides and 12 feet above, according to the company’s website.

“These standards help to prevent limbs and branches from falling on the wires during storms and extreme weather,” PSEG spokeswoman Elizabeth Flagler said in a statement. “This reduces the number of outages affecting customers’ power.”

 James Neubert, Great Neck’s departm ent of public works superintendent, said he’s removed four or five other trees trimmed by PSEG over the last two years — and two or three more could be next.

Neubert said he’s heard complaints from residents, both in person and over the phone, about the trees being removed.

“Nobody is happy to see a tree go,” he said in an interview. “I’ve had a few conversations with residents. … When we reassure that we’ll be replanting, so far all the people that I know of have been satisfied with that answer.”

Bral said residents are mostly on board with the tree replacements.

“I think people understand these trees are ugly,” he said. “We’re not cutting beautiful trees. We’re cutting trees that are altered.”

Safety issues cited

For village officials, taking the trees down isn’t just an aesthetic issue — it’s about safety. The trimming can cause a weight imbalance, creating a hazard for residents walking nearby, Village Clerk Abraham Cohan said.

The trees’ roots had also started to lift the sidewalk in some areas, Neubert said.

“That becomes a trip hazard,” he said.

Westbury Mayor Peter Cavallaro and East Williston Mayor Bonnie Parente said there are trees cut into Y shapes by PSEG scattered throughout their respective villages. Neither village has plans to remove them.

"I've been here my whole life, and I don't remember the trees [being] any different," said Parente, who grew up in neighboring Mineola.

Carol Frank, a Kings Point resident who used to live in Great Neck Estates, helped establish a tree ordinance as part of Great Neck Estates' environmental commission in the 1980s, protecting certain trees from being removed.

But Frank said she believes removing the trees on Middle Neck Road is for the best.

"It’s important to, if you have an improper tree that’s too large for the site, grows too big, or disrupts the sidewalk too much, you need to remove those trees," she said. "But you need to replace them with appropriate trees."

'Wire friendly' trees considered

The village has brought on Alexia Friend, a landscape architect and Great Neck resident, as a contractor to help choose a replacement species from a list of trees that PSEG Long Island considers "wire friendly," including trident maples and hedge maples.

Friend, who said she has worked with other local municipalities on the same issue, is looking for trees with a “consistent aesthetic” and “seasonal interest.”

“Hopefully it’s going to make everything look nice, but more importantly, to be safe,” Neubert said.

Great Neck planned to wrap up its tree removal for the winter on Tuesday, but it can be difficult to keep up with PSEG. The company unexpectedly trimmed another few trees on Middle Neck Road in the days leading up to the removal, Neubert said, leaving one shaped like a U. 

The Middle Neck Road trees might attract the most attention, but that's not the only part of the village where the trees have funny haircuts. There's another series of trees, on East Shore Road, that resemble Y's. The village is monitoring those trees for potential removal, Neubert said. 

By Joshua Needelman

joshua.needelman@newsday.com

Joshua Needelman covers the Town of North Hempstead for Newsday. A Long Island native and University of Maryland graduate, his work has appeared in publications including The New York Times and The Washington Post.