{"id":209525,"date":"2026-04-25T14:52:26","date_gmt":"2026-04-25T14:52:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/209525\/"},"modified":"2026-04-25T14:52:26","modified_gmt":"2026-04-25T14:52:26","slug":"vandal-decapitates-iconic-park-avenue-tulips-advocates-say","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/209525\/","title":{"rendered":"Vandal Decapitates Iconic Park Avenue Tulips, Advocates Say"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>UPPER EAST SIDE, NY \u2014 An entire stretch of Park Avenue\u2019s carefully maintained tulip plantings has been stripped of its blooms, leaving behind dozens of headless stems and casting a shadow over the spring display.<\/p>\n<p>Amy Sheldon, the executive director of The <a href=\"https:\/\/fundforparkavenue.org\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Fund for Park Avenue<\/a>, told Patch that the flowers in two different beds between East 76th and East 77th Streets were all fully decapitated on Monday. <\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It is just shocking,&#8221; Sheldon said. &#8220;We had a hard winter, and the tulips were just starting to bloom. They still had about two weeks left in their growth cycle.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Sheldon told Patch that police were notified after a doorman at 850 Park Ave. witnessed the vandalism in progress and called authorities to report the incident. <\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It\u2019s a very odd circumstance and very disappointing, but I\u2019m really grateful to the doorman,&#8221; Sheldon said.<\/p>\n<p>This type of vandalism is a first for The Fund for Park Avenue, which oversees the annual tradition of tulip, begonia and chrysanthemum plantings along the corridor. <\/p>\n<p>The Fund for Park Avenue has been planting tulips every year since 1980 and is funded by donations. <\/p>\n<p>&#8220;New Yorkers and visitors love these tulips \u2014 they\u2019re a harbinger of spring,&#8221; Sheldon said. &#8220;All of our plantings are done through donations, so these are really the community\u2019s flowers, which is what makes this so upsetting.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The damage, thankfully, is mostly cosmetic, Sheldon said. <\/p>\n<p>The bulbs themselves appear intact, meaning the group\u2019s annual Tulip Dig program \u2014 where people can take bulbs home \u2014 will still move forward.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The tulips were red, white, and bluish \u2014really fun and lively \u2014 and we\u2019re sorry they\u2019re not there for the neighborhood to enjoy,&#8221; Sheldon said. <\/p>\n<p>Learn more about The Fund for Park Avenue <a href=\"https:\/\/fundforparkavenue.org\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>For questions, email Miranda.Levingston@Patch.com.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"UPPER EAST SIDE, NY \u2014 An entire stretch of Park Avenue\u2019s carefully maintained tulip plantings has been stripped&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":209526,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[128,9,24,63,129,131,130],"class_list":["post-209525","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-the-bronx","tag-bronx","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-the-bronx","tag-the-bronx-headlines","tag-the-bronx-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/209525","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=209525"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/209525\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/209526"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=209525"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=209525"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=209525"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}