Another lot I’ve been watching, in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, is not so far along, although its onion-domed Eastern Orthodox church is more impressive than the Catholic school. They seem to be storing gravel here, and there’s not much soil to speak of, but even so, things are growing, and sometimes I see birds, just House Sparrows, but flitting among the stems just the way native migrants might flit through a meadow...




One thing that grows in vacant places is the Empress Tree; Royal Paulownia. Fancy names for an Asian import that rivals Ailanthus as a weed-tree. It does have lovely purple flowers in the Spring, and notably large leaves, but it’s aggressive, though short-lived. The good-sized tree shown above, only three years ago was no bigger than the specimen below, currently growing in the Wildflower Meadow.