How the mighty have fallen

Yesterday was an incongruously glorious day on which to view Tree Carnage. It was as if the balmy blue sky were blinking innocently: Who, me? In a day, the Prospect Park crews had already turned thickets of freshly felled timber to mountains of chips. The air smelled resinous as a lumberyard. I like the suggestion on Brookynometry that the wood be milled into fundraising crafts.

 

Someone on the crew has a soul. "Big Grandma Green" had crashed to earth (before the storm, according to an astute park observer) behind the Zoo along the East Drive, and was touchingly commemorated. If that date is accurate,  she stood as a wee sapling when Hessian soldiers used their bayonets to pin General Washington's patriots to her larger neighbors in the surrounding forest during the Battle of Brooklyn.

Most of the trees survived the storm, however, and Brooklynites put them to good use as the blessed warmth turned the Long Meadow to muck. This fellow actually had 3 little dogs in attendance, who all looked like storybook piglets.

Not everyone sees trees as an invitation to leisure. These two robins were having a nasty dust-up over nesting rights. Welcome back,guys.

Say thank you to Grandma Green: Go here to donate and help defray the massive expense of the park's storm clean-up.

Comments

[Chicken Underwear]

Big grandma was chopped down by Parks Deptartment Crews before the storm

http://whatyourdonotknowbecauseyouarenotme.blogspot.com/2010/03/timber.html.

Other trees fell on her.

http://whatyourdonotknowbecauseyouarenotme.blogspot.com/2010/03/i-can-see-forest-for-lack-of-trees.html

[Matthew]

As romantic as it sounds, "1776" as a birthday for this tree is pretty unlikely. As far as I know, the Park's oldest trees date back to the mid-19th century at best, and there must be very few of those left if any. Interestingly, some giants that have come down in the past showed what's been read as trauma from the transplantations that Olmsted & Vaux did with their horse-drawn tree mover.