Children at Mis Amiguitos preschool on Manhattan's Upper East Side tended corn stalks growing from a sidewalk tree bed on York Avenue between East 83rd and 84th Streets for months, watching them reach over seven feet tall. On August 17, they found the corn uprooted and scattered. Surveillance video showed a man on a bike ripping them out in broad daylight the day before. NYPD is investigating but no arrests have been made.

Mily Caballero, chief executive of the full-immersion Spanish Montessori program, said she was "beyond angry" and the children couldn't understand why someone would destroy their work. The garden began five years ago after a delivery truck uprooted a tree. Students planted flowers, pumpkins, herbs, and sunflowers, delighting neighbors like Jill Feldmann, a 45-year resident. But starting in March, plants were repeatedly stomped and dog waste left in the soil. The school spent about $1,000 on barriers and wire, yet vandals struck three more times before the corn planting.

The corn became central to the curriculum, teaching agriculture and attracting wildlife. Parent Alexandra Wilcox struggled to explain the destruction to her son. The vandalism appears part of a pattern: on August 15, a similar man yanked sunflowers a block west, and on August 20, a doorman witnessed someone hacking begonias on Park Avenue at 66th Street with a machete, according to Amy Sheldon, executive director of the Fund for Park Avenue.