... had been hacked down... seemingly overnight...
Per the reader: "maybe it was diseased, but it looked perfectly healthy to me."
Melanie just posted a photo of this willow at East Village Corner. In the comments I said that I loved this tree.
UPDATE:
A reader sends along another photo, noting that "it looks worse in the daylight."
Ugh.
Previously on EV Grieve:
The willow trees of Loisaida
11th Street condo owners want to chop down this willow tree
I can't believe this beautiful weeping willow tree is gone!!!
ReplyDeletehow and why is this possible? Crap, on MacDougal, you need city permission to even touch a tree, while most of the greedy little store owners try to chop them down at will. This was the most beautiful tree in the east village. WHY??
ReplyDeletewow, that is such a sad sight!
ReplyDeleteThat's AWFUL. Willow trees are my best weatherman. I hope the Lorax opens some whoopass on the baddies responsible for this one.
ReplyDeletewhat the fuck
ReplyDeleteSeriously.
ReplyDeleteI think a great follow up post would be:
-who did this?
-on what authority?
-what is the process to gain protection for trees like this, as they seem so able to do in the West Village?
its amazing how shitty it makes the street and neighboring buildings look when you take down a single tree
ReplyDeleteThat newish $$$ house is pretty shitty looking to begin with.
ReplyDeleteTheir energy bill just went up at least 5% next summer
ReplyDeletenoooooooo.....
ReplyDeleteThat tree dropped a pretty huge limb on the sidewalk last week after the storm. It would have killed a passer-by, a kid or someone's dog. Blame the lawyers and the folks who have neglected to maintain that beautiful tree. Who's lot is that anyway?
ReplyDeleteI saw them as they were doing this. I asked why and they said they were just "giving it a trim". WTF kinda trim is that?!! sad.
ReplyDeleteI live directly across the street, and was as shocked as you all to see this when I got home last night.
ReplyDeleteMy roommate was home during the day yesterday when he saw the workers cutting limbs off the tree. He went across the street to ask them what they were doing. The workers were in an orange tree cutting truck with the Parks Dept. leaf logo on the door. He was told by one of the workers that the Parks Dept. trims these trees way back every 5 years to prevent them from becoming too dense and heavy. He said if they let them go too long they can get blown over in a windstorm or limbs can break during a snowstorm. He also said that the trees grow so fast that it will be almost back to normal by the spring.
There was also a 30 foot by 10 foot pile of cuttings left in the street last night, and I saw the orange Parks Dept. truck with a chipper attached to it turning down my street this morning.
This is really sad. We had a willow tree even bigger than this next to our house, and my parents didn't want to take it down, but they had to because the roots were messing with the foundation. My mom cried when it was gone. It was a beautiful tree. I really hope these people had a valid reason to get rid of this tree, but I suspect they didn't.
ReplyDelete@anon 10:47 Thanks for the info. Jeez, that seems more like a major surgery than a pruning. I do hope it grows back quickly....
ReplyDeletehttp://i.imgur.com/sTxdf.jpg :(
ReplyDeleteIt is possible that this tree will come back in full glory in the spring. As a city girl I know very little about gardening, but have learned a bit in the 15 or so years I've had a plot in my block's garden.
ReplyDeleteOnce I trimmed my beautiful sage all the way back because the branches were rotting and it was a mess. I was castigated by my fellow gardeners for killing a 30 year old grandma sage. But the next year it came back stronger and more beautiful than ever.
"Mister!" he said with a sawdusty sneeze,
ReplyDelete"I am the Lorax. I speak for the trees.
I speak for the trees, for the trees have no tongues.
And I'm asking you, sir, at the top if my lungs"-
he was very upset as he shouted and puffed-
"What's that THING you've made out of my Truffula tuft?"
"Look, Lorax," I said."There's no cause for alarm.
I chopped just one tree. I am doing no harm.
I'm being quite useful. This thing is a Thneed.........
Oh no!
ReplyDeleteAs this was a 'trim' job, does that mean the tree is going to be left there like that? If so, will it really sprout new growth?
I say we pick up the guerrilla gardening where Liz Christy left off and start bombing the neighborhood with bags of seeds.
indeed if this is all the cutting being done to this tree (esp leaving the top with foliage) then yes, it will come back, thankfully. if they were going to "chop it down" they'd chop it down at the stump.
ReplyDeleteThat's not a pruning, it's an AMPUTATION!
ReplyDeletethese photos make me ill. not sure i believe there will be speedy regeneration :(
ReplyDeleteIf tree in on personal property, one can do whatever
ReplyDeleteCall Dorie Rosen at the Bronx Botanical Garden. She will know exactly what to do with the tree.
ReplyDeleteWHAT are they feeding those parks dept employees! TRIM? REALLY? Are you serious???
ReplyDeleteThat tree needed maintainence, and you all act like a bunch of corn-fed, pale-skinned, untrimmed fleshy babies
ReplyDeleteFear not dear neighbors! Terrified, I quickly did a search and found this...http://www.ubcbotanicalgarden.org/forums/showthread.php?t=23256
ReplyDeleteI can sleep now.