Birdhouses Return To UES Block, Months After Vandal Cut Them Down

UPPER EAST SIDE, NY — A row of colorful birdhouses once again adorns an Upper East Side block, thanks to the resilience of a local group in the face of an act of vandalism that derailed the project last fall.

The bygone birdhouses, hung last summer along East 81st Street near York Avenue, were cut down overnight on Sept. 10 and thrown in the garbage by a woman armed with wirecutters — an act that befuddled neighbors and was captured on surveillance footage.

"The whole block is in shock," neighbor Jerry Howe, who built the birdhouses, told Patch at the time.

Months later, the Yorkville 81 Block Association has constructed about two dozen new birdhouses, reinstalled in their old spots — and even made peace with the alleged vandal.

After contacting the NYPD and reaching out to neighbors, the group managed to identify the culprit as a woman who lived a few blocks away, according to block association cofounder Justin Shea. (He asked Patch not to identify the woman.)

The block association served her with a letter demanding $1,000 in damages — about $50 per birdhouse — and threatened to take her to small-claims court if she did not pay, Shea said. Then, in a chance encounter, Shea ran into the woman in a post office last October and found her holding a money order, ready to pay what she owed.

The woman explained that she cut down the birdhouses because she was disturbed by the "visual clutter," Shea said. In the end, the parties worked out an agreement.

"We don’t need your money, we need your cooperation so we can coexist," Shea recalled telling the woman. "She seemed kind of amenable to that."

After an "outpouring" of interest from neighbors, the new birdhouses were built collaboratively, varnished by Howe and hung up on trees over a few weeks this month.

The block association has obtained official permits from the Parks Department, and added green felt coverings that protect each tree from being damaged by the birdhouses.

At 1 p.m. Saturday, the block association will hold a grand unveiling of the new birdhouses in front of 420 East 81st St., celebrating a surprisingly tidy resolution after a turbulent few months.

"It turned out to be a reasonably sort of successful reset of the whole program," Shea said. "All told, it went pretty well."

Previous coverage: Beloved Birdhouses Cut Down Overnight On Upper East Side Street