Friday, November 7, 2025
The Lakeview train station was spruced up last weekend.
Dozens of people attended the biannual community clean up, hosted by the Lakeview Civic Association, on Saturday. Despite the damp weather, association members, local officials, Metropolitan Transportation Authority police, Sanitation District 6 employees and residents gathered at 9 a.m. to help out.
“We work with all residents, local government officials, and all the different departments in the area,” civic association President Lisa Ortiz said, “to address quality-of-life concerns and to ensure that our downtown area is maintained.
“We clean it up, plant new plants, and make sure the community you’re entering through our business district looks beautiful,” Ortiz added.
Participants picked up garbage around the train station and along nearby streets.
The other focus of the cleanup was the upkeep of the community garden on Woodfield Road, adjacent to the Lakeview train station. The work included weeding, trimming and uprooting plants to replace them for the fall season.
“We’ve noticed that areas of the garden have become overgrown,” Lisa Jolly, a member of the association’s Beautification Committee, said. “So during our annual fall cleanup, we try to beautify the space with some seasonal mums, and make sure that our bulbs are in place for bloom in the spring.”
Each year, Jolly said, the committee considers what was planted the previous season, and plans garden updates accordingly. “I have pictures of where our beautiful tulips and daffodils bloomed last year, and we’re planting perennials in between those spaces,” she explained. “So we try to be strategic, and not mess up the work we did last year.”
The garden was created in 1997 as a beautification project for Lakeview, and was sponsored by the Lakeview Council Incorporated, which disbanded in 2021. The cleanup shares the same intention of creating a welcoming entrance to the hamlet.
“This is the gateway to our community,” Ortiz said. “So people coming in, you want them to see that this is a well-maintained, well-manicured community. This is a community of people that care about the way it looks. We pay a lot to live here, and we want people to see that this is a community that should be respected.”
Local businesses and residents donate resources such as flowers and gardening tools to the cleanup. Sanitation 6 provided gloves and garbage bags as well as manpower, and collected the trash the volunteers gathered.
“We take care of a lot of different towns, and it’s just nice to keep everything clean and make things look nicer,” Joseph Sparacio, a sanitation district supervisor, said. The district encompasses Lakeview as well as Elmont, Franklin Square, Garden City South, Malverne Park, North Valley Stream, South Floral Park and West Hempstead. “Especially by the train station — it’s nice when people arrive and everything is neat,” Sparacio added.
The civic association is working to refurbish a sign in the garden — stating “Welcome to Lakeview”— that was donated by the Lakeview Council when the beautification project began in 1997.
“The sign has deteriorated throughout the years,” Ortiz said. “So we want to revitalize the sign, bring it back to life, have it repainted and make sure the sign will last the test of time.”
The Beautification Committee works to spruce up areas around Lakeview. “We really are working hard, investing our time and resources to make sure that the space is maintained and adds to the value of our community,” Jolly said. The group also maintains the Lakeview Peace Garden, at the intersection of Woodfield Road and Scaneateles Avenue.
“It is a labor of love from the members of the community,” Jolly added. “We’ve been able to reach friends and others in the community that partner with us and lend a hand.”
To join or make a donation, financial or floral, to the volunteer Beautification Committee, contact the civic association at concerns.lakeview@gmail.com.
