I can’t bring myself to look at the newly fixed up yard in the limestone building two buildings west of us. In the last couple of weeks, that coop has done a major renovation of their yard. I did see that they replaced their rough concrete pavement with a smooth pinkish  flagstone.  And in the last few days they’ve added trees and grass. I hear that they’ve even hidden their garbage pails with plants.

Someone said they were assembling the teak benches from Smith and Hawken yesterday.

I just can’t bring myself to look over there. Pure and simple, it’s stoop envy. I’ll be the first to admit that I’d like my children to have a tasteful front yard, one that would impress other people and make me proud.

So in lieu of walking toward Sixth Avenue to investigate the newly fixed up garden, I walked the other way to one of the buildings closer to Seventh Avenue (not a limestone), that has recently fixed up their front yard. It’s a rental building and the tenants on the second floor decided to invest their own money to create a small front garden area.

It happened very quickly. They created a curvy stone walk and put in a bench. They also made a brick planter and planted deep purple and lavender pansies. It is a simple, tasteful design; strictly a seating area with no room for children to play.

A few buildings west of there, there’s a limestone building that for years I considered the lemon of the block. The building was run down and full of a strange collection of tenants, some of whom had probably been there for years. There were always police cars and ambulances pulling up to the building.

About five years ago, a Greek man bought the building and started fixing it up: painting, plumbing, electric; he put in new windows, cleaned the exterior and scraped the paint off the antique front door. The place started to look much better.

Over time, he got rid of some of the more questionable tenants and has been, I’ve heard, charging market-value rents.

The building originally had a make-shift garden of sorts, which had sagging trees and tacky Mexican figurines placed here and there. On the far side of the yard there was a robust rose bush that flowered every June.

A couple of years back, the Greek landlord dug up the yard’s concrete pavement and created two large  rectangular areas for dirt and plantings on either side of the front stoop. Initially he paved over where the rose bush used to be.

The rose bush disappeared completely.

That seemed very cruel to me. But a few days later, he cut out a small circle in his newly poured concrete for the rose bush. The resurrected rose bush was very trembly at first and the landlord had to attach strings on two sides to hold it up. It seems to have stabilized over the years and it still blossoms every June.

Whenever I walk by I admire the brave little rose bush, that demanded a hole in the new concrete to call home.

The landlord made some attempt, not a very professional one, to plant trees and flowers. The garden still has the look and feel of the old victory-style garden. And he’s even left the small statues.

These are the brave little gardens of Third Street. The newly fixed up one at the coop two buildings west is a tad more pretentious. I hear it was designed by the landscape designer at Root Stock, the Slope’s trendy plant shop and nursery. I bet he did a great job; he’s a talented guy. I’m sure it’s nice.

I just can’t bring myself to go look at it. Not yet.