Friday, June 4, 2021

Uprooted tree in Tompkins Square Park

Ugh. One of the beautiful American elms honey locust trees came down in Tompkins Square Park last night over between the main lawn and the dog run ... William Klayer shared these photos...
Combination of winds, wet soil and rotten roots? (Anyone?)...
Updated... Here's a view from the dog run via Derek Berg...

17 comments:

Anonymous said...

Wow :-(

Anonymous said...

That's sad, was a lovely tree. I hope a new one is planted soon.

Anonymous said...

Keep an eye(s) out for leprechauns and/or gold buillion pieces!

Laura Goggin said...

Nooo!

I was walking around the park the other day noting how many trees we've lost in the last 20 years. It used to be a very shady park. We've lost so many elms, which are all about the same age and nearing the ends of their lifespans. It will be decades before any of the newly planted trees reach the size of those that are there now. :(

baker said...

RIP tree... u will be missed

Anonymous said...

Really sad about the tree, but someone give that fence a raise!

XTC said...

Could be some type of disease but looks the the root system didn't have a friable soil medium to spread out and lock the tree into the ground. The growth hormones shot the tree into the sky every spring and made it top heavy. Then boom it got hit by a gust of wind and folded like a cheap deck chair.

Anonymous said...

Oh wow - I loved that tree - let's get a new one in it's place asap

Anonymous said...

Let's not forget the selfish dog owners who let the animals pee on the tree.
People, control your animals.

MrNiceGuy said...

dogs can't pee on trees now? that's a new one for the EVGrumps!!

La vie est belle said...

How sad. Look at how old and grand it was. Then imagine 1000 of them being purposely hauled away from East River Park.

Anonymous said...

I see just as many people "letting if flow" in that park as dogs. If dogs can take out a big tree like that all on their own, trees all around would be falling from grace faster than Giuliani!

Anonymous said...

Urine - dog or human - is bad for trees b/c it's bad for tree roots, period. Ask any arborist.

If urine were good for trees, we'd all know that, wouldn't we? And trees that dogs pee on all the time would be sooooo healthy & flourishing.

To repeat: Urine is bad for trees. It's not hard to remember, and it's not hard to stop urinating on trees or in tree pits.

Anonymous said...

Hi - it wasn’t an elm tree. It was a Honeylocust. Still a loss for the park but not as profound as losing one of the elms.

Anonymous said...

Yes, it wasn't an elm, but still a very pretty, mature tree. When I was walking by, a trio of Parks people were gathered there, sizing up the loss. I asked if the tree was healthy and one of them said that it was indeed healthy but that the water from all the recent rainfall had softened the earth around the root ball. A gust of wind was all it took to knock it over.

Anonymous said...

The feeder roots that actually provide most of the water to elm trees are dozens of feet from the trunk. Urinating on the trunk or in the pit would be better than anywhere else probably. Unless your advocating that dogs shouldn't pee anywhere in the park? The superstition encountered in cities is stranger than anything I've seen living in the bayou.

Anonymous said...

A little urine from a dog on a tree in a large park would not be a big deal. However the NYC parks are not the natural open wilderness. They are mostly (if not all) man-made parks. Specifically Thompkins Square Park is a small park. When you have the density of this city and every other person buys a dog during the pandemic, each area turns into a lot of urine. When it doesn’t rain for a month, then all the tree has had to drink is urine. How would you look after a month of drinking nothing but urine?

You’re welcome to have a dog but the damage to the park this year is going to be astronomical so please try reduce your dog’s emissions to non-nature areas.

The honest truth is that East River Park needs a dog run and Thompkins should be restored to grassier lawns. However we all know how wrapped up ERP is right now to not provide something like that.