A nest the size of two basketballs hung about ten feet up in a city tree at the corner of Cowles Court and Dry Harbor Road in Middle Village, Queens. Betty Coccaro spotted it the previous week, and residents sought help from the city. The Parks Department declined to remove the bald-faced hornets.
Why City Hall Wouldn’t Remove the Nest
A New York Post report detailed how the NYC Parks Department had declined to remove the nest and recommended residents pay out of pocket to have it humanely relocated.
The nest was outside Coccaro’s home and housed bald-faced hornets.
Why the City Wouldn't Move on It
The standoff had been building for weeks. Councilman Phil Wong had asked the Parks Department to remove the nest, and Camile Easterling told the councilman's staff in a September 14 email that the city would not remove the bald-faced hornets. The department said at the time that the hornets play an important role in the ecosystem and recommended hiring a qualified insect relocator if relocation was necessary — work that would require a tree work permit from the Parks Department since the nest sat in a city tree. The Parks Department did not return messages seeking comment, per the earlier Post report.
Wong had called that response absurd, arguing residents should not have to pull a permit, hire a contractor and pay out of pocket to relocate a wasp nest from a city tree. Coccaro had voiced a more immediate worry: what happens if the nest falls? Bald-faced hornets can cause life-threatening allergic reactions from their stings, and while they usually attack only when provoked, Cornell University's Jody Gangloff-Kaufmann noted that they typically build nests higher up in trees, away from people — this one hung just ten feet up.
Residents’ Concerns and Removal Options
Gangloff-Kaufmann had said relocating a nest like this isn't really feasible — the job is best suited for an exterminator — and Angi.com estimates that this kind of nest removal typically costs homeowners $200 to $800 when the city won't step in.
Not an Isolated Standoff
A newsletter from Better Block Project detailed how a Williamsburg wasp nest lingered through nine separate attempts by residents and a small business owner to get city help over several months, with Parks eventually refusing to even provide a contractor contact, citing conflicts of interest. In that case, a few calls to private exterminators got the nest removed in about an hour. Residents who called 311 were directed to police.
The friction points to a broader challenge for a department managing 666,134 street trees citywide while pursuing the city's Urban Forest Plan goal of raising tree-canopy coverage from 23 percent to 30 percent over the next decade, according to Better Block Project. For now, the Middle Village block has one less hazard hanging over it — but residents’ concerns have highlighted the limits of city help.
