Eyes on the Street: New Places to Sit on Myrtle Avenue

Combining public seating and tree protection, the Myrtle Avenue Brooklyn Partnership has begun a second round of street furniture installations. The project is bringing 28 tree guards and 22 benches to Myrtle Avenue between Flatbush and Classon Avenues by the end of the year, joining 40 tree guards and benches that were installed in 2011.

At one of the tree pits on Myrtle Avenue this summer, local residents set up folding chairs and hung out on the street, making it an obvious candidate for a tree guard bench, said the Partnership's Daniel Scorse.

Students in art classes at neighborhood schools created the designs for ten of the new guards, which were then prepped for fabrication by the Pratt Design Incubator for Sustainable Innovation.

The Partnership is seeking sponsors to help defray the cost of maintaining the benches and tree guards. The latest installations were funded by the Partnership's BID, ConEd and New York State urban forestry and Main Street programs.