Help Brighten Up Washington Avenue!

What better way to spend a spring afternoon than by helping to brighten up one of Prospect Heights' main commercial strips?

WAPHA’s Street Beautification Committee and area residents and business owners will be building tree guards and then filling them with herbs and flowers over the next two weeks. And they want YOU to join in. 

Tomorrow, Saturday, June 2nd, beginning at noon, the group will build the tree guards. (Meet at , 700 Washington Ave. bet. St. Marks and Prospect places).

Then on Saturday, June 9th, volunteers will meet at noon at the (tri) corner of Park, Grand & Washington) to plant the herbs and flowers.

The tree guards were paid for by business owners who wanted them in front of their shops and a grant from MillionTreesNYC. In all 11 guards will be installed tomorrow, half that will also function as benches and the other half that are posts connected by chains.

Businesses that have signed up for the guards are /(one tree in front of both shops), , , , Pilates with Balls/, a new restaurant by the owners of at the corner of Washington and Sterling, , , the empty storefront at 695 Washington (paid for by the property owner), United Deli, and  (which already has a tree guard but is getting the plants). 

This is the second effort of the WAPHA beautification committee: In March they organized a clean up of the strip. More events are planned including watering in the summer and bulb-planting in the fall. 

"Our real goal is to not just make stuff look better, but to get the community involved and to look at the street and say, 'How can I make it better?'," said Douglas Amport, co-owner of Bitter & Esters and the committee's co-chair.