Buffalo Rising Online

Assume a diamater at breast height (DBH) of 10" At $1000/inch = $10,000 fine. That should be enough for the owner and contractor to think twice next time. Lazy.

WCP - That seems kind of odd that that would have been done. So, I suppose every time that building needs to be painted a new tree will be planted?

here we go again....

can't we focus on bigger things?

while i agree this was a bad move...as long as he plants a new one (albeit much younger) what are we really suppoused to do about it now? no sense cryin over spilled milk

Trees are not small issues.

In issues of urban design and city comfort, almost nothing is more important than trees.

Some property owners clearly do not see the big picture, understand their communal obligations, or grasp the value of key elements in a good city - like our trees, for instance.

Having planted many trees in my neighborhood I know how much effort it takes .Its not just the initial planting but keeping them watered for the first year or two. Cutting down a tree is a big deal and this must be addressed to deter others.

real shame.. we are such a tree desolate city because of stupid actions like this. How can we ever keep our trees long enough to mature when any and all contractors come in and midnight prune before work. Here 700 block of Main Street, Niagara Street in Riverside, Hertel Avenue Reconstruction ALL have removed trees when they could have been worked around with a little forethought.

We were once the city of trees. Flying into Buffalo, all one would see was a downtown in a forest. Today it looks like the stereotype that people give it.. a wasteland. You want to shake off this rust belt stereotype.. lets get some nicely maintained tree lined streets.

Give me a break! There is not a single reason why other methods of painting a building in this situation could not be employed. Why not hire a company that has a hydraulic boom lift that could reach over and above the trees?!?! Or a company that uses a method of repelling from the roof, just like some window washers do?

Give me a break! There is not a single reason why other methods of painting a building in this situation could not be employed. Why not hire a company that has a hydraulic boom lift that could reach over and above the trees?!?! Or a company that uses a method of repelling from the roof, just like some window washers do?

Big deal, use a cherry picker lift next time...

Walking by [the brilliant] Chow Chocolate today, my friend and I were struck by how desolate Main St. looks...even from a distance...where the trees have been removed for current construction. I'm sure that they will be replaced, though probably with pathetic little saplings or poorly chosen species, but so what? We have a difficult climate, scumbags willing to snap small trees in half to steal a bike, questionable soil quality, and roads far too heavily salted in winter--it's shocking that any of our trees survive to maturity. It struck me that there are a number of salt tolerant, hardy bamboos which could fill in these spots; they grow extremely fast, clumps can be divided and are therefore economical...and if they need to be pulled up for construction, etc, it's no big deal because they transplant pretty well. Granted, it wouldn't be "historically accurate," but think of how neat it would be for our city to make a name for itself as the "City of Good Neighbors...and bamboo."

Let me tell you something, I actually live in this building and Don Leone (Owner of J.P. Bullfeathers) is a complete A-Hole. This guy has to be the cheapest mofo I have ever met. I've been in this building for several years now and everything that his "CREW" does is just like this. They are completely unqualified to complete any job, do it totally wrong using incorrect materials, and have completely no sense of a job well done.

This building has been falling apart for years, the painting should have been done 10+ years ago, as it was peeling very very badly. Go have a good look at the place now, it looks like they never actually removed any of the old paint and simply painted over it, with an ugly picture none the less. I have a photo (or maybe a drawing?) of this building from 1906 and it was the same colors as it was before they painted it this week. Instead of caring, Don Leone simply trying to invest as little as he can into the building slapped some crappy color on top of the old paint. Most likly he was forces to do even this terrible job by the city.

This crew are the same guys who a few years ago also re-did the roof on this building. Guess what, they covered over the drains on the flat roof and the roof became a swimming pool. Literally the whole roof was flooded. I'm surprised that this old place didn't come down under the weight.

Here is what is going to happen, Don will put a new tree there, but it will probably be next fall and it will be what ever he found on sale. It will be the wrong size, shape, and not match the other tree right next to it. He won't take care of it so it will eventually die and he'll simply leave it there dead.

Everyone ban JP Bullfeathers and show him that this kind of stuff shouldn't go unnoticed.

It was in I think the Buffalo News today that Erie County is something like #8 highest taxed while Niagara County is #1 and Rochester's Monroe County is #2.

So ya gots to askyaself, if Erie County taxes are so much lowah, then why do companies still pick Rochester ovah Buffalo? We have good schools and good colleges and great parks and a comparable housing stock.

My opinion...for what its worth is that Buffalo has been to poor for to long and the old crowd still just wants to suck the money out and live off it and suck from the teets of the backroom tamany hall politics and patronage deals.

Look around Buffalo, its the new generation that is taking care of their property and restoring it while the prior generations wont even scrape paint, wont wash a window or fix a screen much less restore anything.

Do you really expect to attract the best and the brightest of people and companies to our city if the quality of life is so filled with rot and decay?

Buffalo has received the growth that we have because we have been investing in the city for the last 30 years with penny's compared to other cities. Could you imagine where Buffalo would be if we really invested in our city.

If your taxes are #8, then there is absolutely no reason why we cannot have more building inspectors on the job and more aggressive prosecution, there is no reason why we cannot promote a civics campaign in our city to maintain, restore and invest in our city.

Oh, I just noticed something else that these jerks did. There are spaces for trees in the side walk in front of the building, of course now one missing its tree, but there were nice metal "gates" surrounding the dirt where these trees are. These guys also broke the metal gate that is surrounding the tree that they didn't cut down! It is completely ruined! I don't know who actually put these gates here or who owns them, but I bet it won't get replaced... I am just completely outraged over this.

Don Leone is one of the most absentee landlords in this city. I lived in one of his properties and he would not fix a thing. He left other tenants for a week while their bathroom did not work. I had friends in another one of his properties where he refused to fix a carbon monoxide leak and a leaky roof. He needs to be held accountable for his properties. His property manager told me he could never get the 'crew' to do any work because they were always working on Leone's house.

obviously as shown by prior behavior, laws that apply to others do not apply to don leone.

Hey I got a plan for buffalo, lets just trash the city and the little beauty thats left, its like people think buffalo is such a f*IN! joke that they will just do whatever they want... this is soo beyond words cutting a tree to fix a building?? do they do that in NYC ? or any other city for that matter? I am soo sick of reading these stories about really stupid people doing really stupid things. We need a community action against this type of stuff, why is everything in buffalo disposable and unimportant??? ACCOUNTABILITY!!!

$10 house painters would use a latter. It's only trim being painted. Why all the gear?

The latter latter should have been ladder.