Friday, October 11, 2013

People miss the trees at the Astor Place subway plaza



As we noted the other day, workers, for whatever reasons, removed the trees from the Astor Place subway plaza ahead of the Astor Place-Cooper Square revamp... most readers here and on Facebook were pretty much WTF about it... EVG regular Terry Howell shared this shot of the trees as they looked in January 2011... Anyway, plans show about eight trees will be planted here in the revamp...

Previously on EV Grieve:
Revamped Astor Place subway plaza apparently won't need its existing trees

Five years later, Astor Place apparently ready for its 2-year reconstruction project

An updated look at the all-new Astor Place

Workers chopping down the trees at 51 Astor Place

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

That's a nice picture.

*sigh*

Anonymous said...

Just another reason for me to leave this neighborhood:

Overrun by entitled NYU students - check

View spoiled by the death star - check

Trees cut down for no reason - check

Deli replaced by student hangout fast food shop - check

Small locally owned businesses across the street replaced by expensive trendy hotel - check

Anonymous said...

they suck for cutting those beauties down!!!!

david said...

Being a dirty filthy liberal myself, i hope it's okay to say the reaction to this is pretty much WTF. A few trees that were never in their natural environment, have been sacrificed to make way for new and improved trees that are not in their natural environment. Seriously folks.

Anonymous said...

Another stab in the heart.

BJ said...

Trees are living things that take root and give us a feeling of permanence (as well as providing shade, beauty, etc). Cutting down perfectly healthy trees to remodel a plaza and replace them with new trees is a mistake. The plaza should have been designed AROUND trees that have been a part of Astor Place for years. My heart dropped when I got off the train the other night and saw open air, stumps, and wood chips.

Anonymous said...

They don't want natural trees, they want "designed" trees that they can strategically place in exact increments around the "plaza" according to their bllueprints. They don't like natural, organic shapes and the chaos that ensues when you build in harmony with nature as opposed to stripping it bare and adding baby trees that will take 50 years to get to that point that the ones you cut down were at when you killed them. Stupid a-holes

david said...

@ October 11, 9:04 PM

And that's my point. These trees were not part of the natural, organic space you speak very lovingly of. They were also part of a planned blueprint by whoever designed that (unappealing) traffic island. Now they are being torn down and replaced with a larger number of trees to create a space you can also want to love and protect.

They made quite a nice pic on a snowy day, but my memory bank has nothing on any imprint they made.

To bring MORE green space to the plaza, it's not just about tearing out concrete and pouring more. There's irrigation, drainage, etc. These trees likely wouldn't have survived that. RIP trees. You were loved