Family business decorates Park Avenue in New York

NEW YORK – The prestigious Park Avenue neighborhood has a small business that brings the festive spirit to the streets yearly.

City-Scape Landscaping, a Queens-based family business, is installing 120 fir trees shipped from Nova Scotia, Canada along an avenue spanning nearly 50 blocks, from forty ninth to 97th Streets.

The company has maintained the avenue’s grassy center lanes – often known as Park Avenue malls – for 50 years. A crew of six to seven City-Scape employees sets up the firs. According to Experian Business Data, the corporate brings in over $1 million in annual sales from all of its customers. The fir process accounts for near $100,000 of this annually.

Park Avenue has been a key a part of the corporate’s operations since 1972, City-Scape’s owners said, helping pay salaries and support families.

City-Scape Landscaping began when the late owner Vincent Sofield’s older brothers, Joe and Duke Sofield, were hired by their neighbor Peter Van de Wetering…the incomparable impresario of Park Avenue tulips” — to assist his team arrange and maintain malls, said Vincent.

Soon after, Van de Wetering moved to Long Island to start out Van de Wetering Greenhouses, which still maintains the avenue with lush tulips and seasonal vegetation. He handed over the upkeep of the mall permanently to the Sofields and City-Scape operated.

“I do not think Park Avenue would have the identical charm without the center partitions,” said Dylan, Vincent Sofield’s son. “I feel it really creates contrast with the concrete jungle – it softens the eyes a bit, makes it less aggressive.”

Half a century later, City-Scape keeps the corporate within the family. After becoming co-owner earlier this 12 months, 26-year-old Dylan is taking on the operation following the recent death of his father.

“A whole lot of people don’t think me after I tell them I own a business,” he told CNBC earlier this 12 months. “They ask for the boss and I say, ‘You’re him.’ But they quickly lose that once they realize I do know what I’m talking about.”

Sofield said he has been playing a task within the business since he was young, not because he needed to, but because he “at all times desired to be involved”.

“I used to be probably pulling a rake before I could walk,” he joked.

Despite the alley’s high profile, Sofield said he felt unfazed by it because growing up it was “all he knew”. However, as he gets older, he realizes that Park Avenue just isn’t just landscaping work.

“It’s definitely something to be happy with,” said Sofield. “I see my work in all places, TV, Instagram. I’ll scroll and think, “Oh, listed here are my tulips,” or “Here’s my lawn.”

For a lot of the 12 months, City-Scape visits shopping malls every Monday before busy weekdays. Crews weed, mow lawns and hedges, remove trash, water plants and repair damaged picket barriers.

The company is employed by Fund for Park Avenue – a neighborhood non-profit organization answerable for shopping malls – to take care of green areas all year long.

Malls change with the seasons: tulips in spring, begonias in summer, chrysanthemums in fall, and temporary firs in winter.

“It’s the front yard, Park Avenue Gardens,” said group president Barbara McLaughlin. “So anyone lucky enough to continue to exist Park Avenue really enjoys it each day, but it surely’s also an excellent place to walk and a number of people enjoy it.”

Trees are lit up throughout the annual Park Avenue tree lighting at Brick Presbyterian Church, an event that attracted 4,000 people this 12 months, a church spokesman said.

“It’s such an intimate event for New York,” McLaughlin said. “It’s a neighborhood event, a neighborhood vibe, but everyone seems to be welcome.”

The trees shall be cut in mid-January.

“We’d like them to remain longer, but they don’t seem to be planted,” McLaughlin said. “These trees are installed temporarily in order that they are drying up.”

And because the trees mark the change of seasons, additionally they mark the season of change within the City-Scape. It was the primary Christmas tree installation for Dylan Sofield, who ran the corporate and not using a father.

“I can still count on my family’s support,” he said. “My uncle continues to be around and has been doing this for 50 years; just isn’t going anywhere.”