FAIRFAX : Patience Pays Off in Planting of Pistache Trees; Now They Need to Grow
Only mad dogs and men in need of a clean shirt would venture out on his neighborhood’s stretch of Fairfax Avenue on a hot summer’s day, Richard Harrison says.
“It was the summer of 1993. I walked to the cleaners on Pico,” said Harrison, a systems analyst for Mattel who has lived in the neighborhood for four years. “It was such an unpleasant walk, so hot and smoggy, and the sunlight glared off the concrete. I thought, ‘It would be so much nicer if there were trees.’ ”
Although many people would consign such a thought to the hazy realm of “what ifs,” Harrison made his a reality, persevering in nearly two years of dealing with city bureaucrats and occasionally wary business owners.
Last Saturday, about 100 neighbors and volunteers from the Los Angeles Conservation Corps planted 14 Chinese pistache trees on both sides of the quarter-mile block of Fairfax, between Whitworth Drive and Olympic Boulevard.
The trees haven’t sprouted leaves yet, so at the moment they look like giant twigs. “People joked. . . . They said, ‘Denny, you’re planting dead trees,’ ” said Denny Brand, owner of an antique furniture store on Fairfax. But once spring comes, Brand said, “the trees will make the street more charming.”
Harrison said that when he began organizing a group to support the tree planting project, some people were surprised that ultimately they were responsible for the project. “Some people bailed out after that first meeting,” he said.
Those who signed on attended five training sessions held by the TreePeople, a nonprofit group that promotes the planting of trees. They were told what city permits were needed and were put in touch with other community groups that had carried out beautification projects. The TreePeople also led them to the Los Angeles Conservation Corps, a nonprofit organization that supports community landscaping projects.
Harrison got a permit to plant the trees from the city’s Bureau of Engineering. Although the permit was free, it cost $440 to have the city cut holes in the sidewalk and $1,400, or $100 per tree, to haul away the debris.
Overall, the project cost about $3,200. The funds were collected from TreePeople, the Conservation Corps, local businesses and the Carthay Square Neighborhood Assn.
To get permission to plant trees, letters were written to the owners of antique stores, bakeries, Ethiopian restaurants and other businesses that line both sides of the block.
“I explained that we weren’t asking for money, just their permission to plant a tree,” Harrison said. He said 40% of the business people replied.
He wrote again, and more responded, saying, “It’s OK, as long as they don’t raise my taxes,” Harrison said.
Peter Lassen, a project manager with the Los Angeles Conservation Corps, organized the tree planting operation last weekend and advised the community and business owners about care of the trees.
“My experience has been that the community keeps an eye on the tree maintenance,” Lassen said.
Lassen said he was impressed with the community effort and by Harrison’s determination. “He really put together a lovely project,” Lassen said. “The trees will make for a shadier area and provide for a pleasant place to walk. It’s better business to have trees on your street.”
