No Trees, Please: Brooklyn Residents Say Plantings Will Harm Their Homes’ Feng Shui

Residents of Brooklyn’s Bensonhurst neighborhood are calling for the city’s Parks Department to leave the concrete jungle alone. The largely Chinese-American district is throwing shade at City Hall over plans to dig sidewalk tree wells they say would block luck and good health from flowing into their homes, according to ancient feng shui principles.The community stands opposed to the plantings, which in some cases would place trees directly outside people’s front doors, creating a type of blockage sometimes referred to among feng shui practitioners as a “heart-piercing” obstruction.“You cannot plant right directly in front of someone’s home. Basically, we believe that’s going to stop the good energy coming in, bad for the health,” Councilwoman Susan Zhuang told ABC News.The community is calling for the Parks Department to work with them to craft a new, culturally sensitive plan.Feng shui, which dates back more than 5,000 years, is a philosophy followers use to channel positive energy into their lives, while deflecting negativity and preventing stagnation. An expert and founder of Intuitive Feng Shui, Soo Jae Lee, defines feng shui as “an awareness, an alignment and conscious co-creation.”In the West, feng shui is often mistaken for a strict set of rules. For instance, a poorly placed mirror might throw sha — alternately translated as “spirits,” “nightmares,” or simple negativity — into a room. Such a misstep could be rectified by adding red furniture, according to feng shui principles. A stove is best placed in the southeast corner of the home. A bed with its foot directly facing the bedroom door is said to be in “mortuary position,” for example.But Ms. Lee told Modern Aging last year that feng shui is “about your awareness, and doing things differently in your home to create the kind of energy that you want.”For New York City’s Parks Department, the planned tree wells are part of a strategic initiative to plant as many trees as possible on public land over the next nine years, with the ultimate goal of expanding the tree canopy to cover 30 percent of the city by 2040.According to the agency’s website: “New street trees are planted on a cyclical basis — prioritizing the most heat-vulnerable neighborhoods first.” Part of Ms. Zhuang’s district in south Brooklyn is scheduled for planting during Phase 1 of the Neighborhood Tree Planting Program between 2027 and 2029.Feng Shui Manhattan founder Laura Cerrano also emphasized the importance of building awareness to resolve the stand-off between Bensonhurst’s feng shui followers and the Parks Department.“The first step is to listen,” she told The New York Sun in a phone conversation Tuesday.At a minimum, according to Ms. Cerrano, tree wells should be located so that they don’t obstruct entrances, and also be kept trimmed so that as they grow, branches don’t start to encroach. Spindly, unstable trees struggling to take root in the concrete can throw off the energy of a space, she said.“ The negotiation would be, if you’re going to plant trees in front of homes, do not plant them directly in front of the doorway,” she told the Sun. A second consideration should be “ choosing trees that are native to Long Island or to this environment” so they stand a better chance of surviving.A representative for the Parks Department told the Sun that the agency has spoken with Ms. Zhuang and will work with her and other residents to “accommodate community concerns” as the agency presses on with its tree planting campaign.

No Trees, Please: Brooklyn Residents Say Plantings Will Harm Their Homes’ Feng Shui

No Trees, Please: Brooklyn Residents Say Plantings Will Harm Their Homes’ Feng Shui

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