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22 The Queens Courier • april 23, 2015 for breaking news visit www.queenscourier.com Photo courtesy of NYC Parks/Daniel Avila Former Knicks Walt “Clyde” Frazier and Jerome Williams joined Parks Commissioner Mitchell Silver and volunteers to mark the planting of 3,500 trees at Alley Pond Park. Former Knicks help plant new trees and shrubs at Alley Pond Park by ROBERT POZARYCKI rpozarycki@queenscourier.com/@robbpoz Their most recent campaign wasn’t too successful, but the New York Knicks scored a win for the environment this week at Alley Pond Park. Knicks legend Walt “Clyde” Frazier and former Knick Jerome Williams joined the Parks Department, the Knicks City Dancers, students from P.S. 161 in Richmond Hill and volunteers to announce the planting of 3,500 trees and 1,050 shrubs across the 655-acre northeast Queens green space. The planting was made possible through the Trees for Threes program launched by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), which donated one tree for every three-pointer the Knicks made during their 41 home games at Madison Square Garden this season. At season’s end, the Knicks had accumulated more than 500 three-point buckets at MSG, and PwC decided to triple its donation to city parks. “The Knicks and PwC understand the importance of adding trees to New York City’s ecosystem and how valuable care and stewardship are to the health of young trees on the streets and in our parks,” said Parks Commissioner Mitchell Silver. The second-largest green space in Queens, Alley Pond Park features many wetlands, tidal flats, meadows and thick forests. It also has the city’s first high ropes adventure course and is part of the Urban Park Rangers’ Alley Pond Park adventure. Two 109th Precinct cops show NYPD’s friendly side BY LIAM LA GUERE lguerre@queenscourier.com @LiamLaGuerre While 12-year-old Joseph Prisco was playing basketball alone in a local Whitestone park one day, a squad car pulled up at the curb and one officer approached him. Joseph thought maybe he was in trouble, but what the officer said shocked him. The policeman asked to “shoot some hoops,” according to the boy, while his partner waited by the car. As the officer played with the preteen, he asked questions about where Joseph lived, sports he liked and school. When they finished playing, Joseph called his mother, Angela Delli Gatti-Prisco, and told her about what happened. She was stunned, and thought, “Since when does a police officer stop a car to play ball with some kid at a park?” she recalled. But the men, Police Officers Justin Hubbard and Nicholas Hon, were just making certain the boy was okay when they saw him alone on March 26 at Clintonville Playground. Their actions inspired Delli Gatti-Prisco to write a letter of appreciation to the We Love Whitestone community group, which honored the two officers on Wednesday. “In today’s day and age, many of us take for granted the protection and service we are provided by our ‘men in blue,’ the policemen of New York City, who day in and day out put their lives on the line for the lives of others,” the mother wrote in a letter to the group. About the incident, the cops said they were just doing their job and checking on the boy. That humble response resonated with community members. “With all the bad publicity that cops have been getting, we felt that the majority of them are good and trying to do good things,” We Love Whitestone founder Alfredo Centola said. “And we wanted to acknowledge their going above and beyond their everyday duties.” Photo courtesy of We Love Whitestone Police Officers Nicholas Hon and Justin Hubbard awarded by Joseph Prisco.


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