[Photo by Roderick Romero]
The unique tree nest that surrounded a willow in El Jardin del Paraiso, the community garden on Fourth Street between Avenue C and Avenue D, is no more.
An EVG reader spotted the former octagonal treehouse broken up and lying in piles late last week...
[Photo via @artisanmatters]
East Village resident Roderick Romero created the structure in the fall of 2003. He also learned of its fate last week. No one from the garden, where he is a member, consulted him about the removal.
"It's horrible. It was a total surprise to me," he told me in a phone call.
Romero said that a garden committee member thought the structure had become decrepit, and started taking it down. When Romero saw what had happened — and what was remaining of the structure — he told the garden to just remove the rest.
"So many kids loved," he said. "Adults did too, but the kids got a lot of joy of it."
[Photo by Roderick Romero]
Romero, a well-known treehouse architect known for unconventional designs, has built structures for residential properties in the United States, Central America and Europe. This was his first treehouse in the "public domain," which he created at no charge to the garden. (This article for the Times in 2003 has more background.)
He said that he had done maintenance on the tree nest through the years and was unaware any structural issues.
The tree nest's departure reminded some residents of the removal of the Tower of Toys from the Sixth Street and Ave B Community Garden in 2008 a year after its creator, Eddie Boros, died. When told of this, Romero responded, "the only difference is I'm not dead."
