Allan Appel Photo
Honey DeRosa and Fran Bernardo will get their sleep back but not their trees now that Amtrak has switched its plans for emergency repair work in Fair Haven Heights.
Amtrak announced the balance of rock drilling and heavy hitting work to stabilize the slopes leading down to the tracks will be done between 7 a.m. and 4:30 p.m. It expects to finish the job by July 9.
The shift away from night work was the consequence of a controversy that erupted last week when neighbors’ months’-long exasperation with Amtrak’s lack of response about nocturnal construction noise and lights reached a boiling point.
They filled local officials’ ears, and days later the night work was suspended, pending a public meeting. That meeting occurred Tuesday night.
A victory for local residents, the announcement was made at an impassioned but polite meeting orchestrated by Mayor John DeStefano with city and Amtrak staff and 50 Fair Haven Heights residents who gathered at the Pilgrim Church on East Grand Avenue.
Still the news was a kind of Pyrrhic victory for many residents.
The clear cutting of trees that sloped down from residents’ houses, protecting them both from train noise and burglars, will not be so easy to remedy.
“It looks like Ground Zero,” said Bernardo (at right in top photo, with DeRosa), who lives on Carroll Street.
“I’ve been here for 26 years and I never saw a house across the tracks,” said DeRosa. “Our neighborhood has changed forever.” DeStefano promised to follow through with Amtrak to discuss some reforestation.
Amtrak Division Engineer George Fitter (pictured) in effect apologized for not giving the city and neighbors sufficient notice about the work. However, he said the trees on the slopes leading down to the tracks had to be cut.
“Trees fall on the wires, burn the system out. On the Saturday before Thanksgiving, one fell and knocked out the whole corridor,” he said.
The mayor, who acted as a kind of marriage counselor between Amtrak and Fair Haven Heights neighbors, said that Amtrak has its responsibilities to keep the right of way safe, but “we want to help you to be a good neighbor.”
To that end he announced that the chain link fencing with non-diaphanous green slats and guard rail that Amtrak had erected along Russell and Clifton streets as part of its work would be removed.
An ornamental black steel picket fence will replace it.
At the announcement, applause broke out in the room. None was happier than Anne DeCola. The 63-year resident and self-styled “mayor of Russell Street” had told the mayor at the start of the meeting, “I had a beautiful country road, and now it’s a highway.”
“Thank you, mayor,” DeCola (pictured) said.
“Thank you, mayor,” he replied.
These bits of good news were scant satisfaction to neighbors who resented the trees being cut so aggressively.
“You cut with the same blade near residences as well as behind Home Depot,” said Fair Haven developer Fereshteh Bekhrad.
Maks Dmytruk, Jr. (pictured) has lived all his 53 years on Clifton Avenue. Behind him the slope to the tracks are now denuded. He said it reminded him of the 1980s when Amtrak engaged in similar episode of clear cutting. He said without the protection of the trees there was a rash of robberies at that time.
“I’m thinking of putting up my own fences, getting a dog. Watch out what you have in the back yard,” he cautioned.
Amtrak’s rescheduling of trains so it could finish the work by day was no small adjustment, said city transportation chief Mike Piscitelli. “George understood the concerns of the neighbors. Getting them to focus on a small area was a big lift for them, a big deal.”
The mayor promised a better notification system for residents to register their Amtrak complaints. He also took responsibility for working with Amtrak on maintenance of slopes, future trees, and tunnel.
He deployed Livable City Initiative’s Linda Davis to organize a walk this month for residents to have input on remediation of other matters related to Amtrak.
These included: the reforestation of the slopes (someone suggested dogwoods and smaller trees posing small danger to train wires); and repair of the sidewalks over the tracks on East Grand and on Clifton. With that input, another meeting will be scheduled within 45 days, DeStefano promised.
Between these jobs and the ongoing replacement of ties all along the line, Honey DeRosa shrugged and said the meeting was, in sum, good but sad. She predicted the problem will last for years.
“We’ll get some sleep at least,” she said.
Thank you Mayor, Alex Rhodeen, Mike P., Amtrak, neighbors - the replacement of that industrial-strength green fence on Clifton is a relief to hear about. I think Dogwoods are a great idea, or what about Lilacs? I live across the street from the tracks, and I don't know what I would do if someone attacked the woods behind my house like that. I feel like random clear-cutting is not something that should be happening in 2010 - Amtrak should have taken a more modest approach, cutting only what needed to be cut. I wonder how much taxpayer money went to this emergency shoring-up work? At least some of my money will be well-spent on the new ornamental fence. Amtrak still needs to address the graffiti on their trestle at Hemingway and 1st Ave.