ABOUT A CERTAIN TREE

Beautiful bark peeling off in sheets.

I see a Fish wanting to appear here.

I live in the white building right of the frame, and an old friend lives in the middle building with part of it under construction. They are both connected to a third building out of frame with shared back alleys, boiler, and owned by the same landlord.  This poor little tree was brand new and vibrantly live only a few years ago.

 Now it's dead and has been for about a year.

Spring came but no leaves.

 Construction debris has been washed into the roots

but is not the cause of death. There was a gas leak under the street when the Landlord began digging out below the store in the basement without proper permits and broke a pipe. The building was without gas for a year and the City was monitoring the repairs. New construction and further digging started up again this year.  What used to be a friendly deli, and what used to be our communal garden out back will become a very high class private two floor residence with a floor below the street, their own boiler, and a generator for emergencies as well as a back patio.  The other part of the building will, as far as we know, continue to be tenant apartments attached to the old boiler.  But we're guessing because they don't consider any of us in their plans.

So, I found the New York City street tree site and tried to register for a removal and maybe a replacement when the construction is complete.  But the site was malfunctioning.  I was informed that they are 'working on it' so told to phone the general 311 number.  Since I'm not an owner I may not have any right to ask.  Why care?  It's an old habit, predating this landlord who took over in 1996, harking back to my arrival here in 1969 and into the Seventies when we were a real community; organized tenant committees, had a lovely back yard communal garden, and threw several real block parties to fund ten street trees and then the iron fences that would protect them.  Over the decades they have all been damaged or disappeared but for three.  Mainly because the police station began using the street for parking and moving successively larger trucks.  And, the population has so increased that traffic has too.  Giant moving vans broke branches in order to load up another move and so many local businesses are gone as well that it's hardly recognizable any more.  It is what it is and I have mostly let go...but this little tree suddenly moved me again in the direction of caring and that can't be a bad thing.

~*~