tulips that famously line Park Avenue<\/a> during a daylight rampage, neighbors said, punishing the Upper East Side \u201cfor its wealth and its beauty.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\nThe Tulip Terminator\u2019s anger was in full bloom the morning of April 18 when he used a cane to whack away at two separate flower beds between East 76th and East 77th streets, according to Amy Sheldon,\u00a0the executive director of The\u00a0Fund for Park Avenue.<\/p>\n
A \u201cdisturbed\u201d businessman hacked two beds of tulips on Park Avenue last Saturday. J.C. Rice for NY Post<\/p>\n
Red, white and blue tulips were planted this year in honor of America\u2019s 250th birthday. J.C. Rice for NY Post<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t understand it. I don\u2019t know why somebody would do it,\u201d said Sheldon, whose organization oversees the annual plantings.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe tulips are just beautiful. They are harmless. They have no impact on anybody other than making them happy and smile. So I can\u2019t imagine why someone would do something like this. He\u2019s obviously a very disturbed person.\u201d<\/p>\n
Christian Ortiz, a doorman at 850 Park Avenue, said the vandal, who had a limp and walked with a cane, was wearing what looked like a Yankees shirt and swinging his cane \u201clike a golf club.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHe started swinging at the flowers and then a few bystanders or any person that basically looked at him \u2013 he started yelling slurs at them and just being nasty,\u201d said Ortiz, 33.<\/p>\n
After beheading two of the neighborhood\u2019s iconic plots, the man stormed off toward Lexington Avenue, witnesses said.<\/p>\n
Ortiz reported the vandalism to the NYPD, but cops were unable to track him down. <\/p>\n
Christian Ortiz watched the man curse at passersby and hack at the flowers. J.C. Rice for NY Post<\/p>\n
The flower vandalism is a first for The Fund, which has planted tulip, begonia and chrysanthemum along the tony corridor every year since 1980.<\/p>\n
There have been other similar incidents in the area in recent years, but none have touched the malls that The Fund oversees, noted Sheldon.<\/p>\n
This year\u2019s flora included 68,000 red, white and blue tulips stretched from East 54th to East 86th Street in honor of America\u2019s 250th birthday.<\/p>\n
The mystery whacker is still in the wind. J.C. Rice for NY Post<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s such a shame, only an angry person would do this,\u201d said local Blair Brown-Hoyt, 75. The act of hatred is \u201cpunishing Park Ave. for its wealth and its beauty.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Fortunately, the vandal spared the tulip bulbs, which are underground \u2014 meaning the flowers remain viable and will bloom again.<\/p>\n
Residents will still be able to take the bulbs home in mid-May as part of The Fund\u2019s annual Tulip Dig Program.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It was a botanical bloodbath. A \u201cdisturbed\u201d cane-wielding man decapitated dozens of tulips that famously line Park Avenue…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":210122,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[14570,57,9,24,197,63,467,134,136,135,466,58,5614],"class_list":["post-210121","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-staten-island","tag-flowers","tag-metro","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-new-york-city-life","tag-nyc","tag-park-avenue","tag-staten-island","tag-staten-island-headlines","tag-staten-island-news","tag-upper-east-side","tag-us-news","tag-vandalism"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/210121","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=210121"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/210121\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/210122"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=210121"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=210121"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=210121"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}