By Gus Saltonstall
The days are passing but the downed tree in Riverside Park near the Eleanor Roosevelt statue entrance at West 72nd Street is still down.
It has now been five days since the large tree toppled on Monday night.
On Wednesday, it appeared that the tree would soon be gone as multiple Parks Department vehicles were circled around and yellow caution tape had been wrapped around it. However, when West Side Rag returned on Thursday, the vehicles were gone and the tree appeared untouched.
A curious dog walker made his way up to the tree while exclaiming over the phone what he had stumbled upon, and a young woman slowly circled the wooden corpse taking photos.
A flurry of faintly falling slow fell Thursday on the fallen bark. It replaced the rays of sunlight that beamed down on Wednesday.
On Friday, the tree had no examiners when the Rag made its daily visit but the yellow caution tape had snapped off in one place, leaving the tree only half wrapped.
A noticeable increase of squirrels scurried throughout the dead branches.
There were no Parks Department vehicles in sight.
We emailed them.
A spokesperson from the department told the Rag that it plans to remove the tree next week as it doesn’t pose an additional threat to the public. The fallen tree will be removed by a forestry tree crew using bucket trucks, chippers and a log loader.
It looks like the tree will still be there on Monday.
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Probably waiting for some Parks tree contractor to come and cut it up and cart it off.
Correct.
Does no one in the Parks Department, Riverside Conservancy, or the Upper West Side have a chainsaw???? Possibly the most succinct demonstration of where city services are at in the year of our lord 2023.
Makes me miss the Dinkins days
Removing such a large tree is not as simple a process as getting rid of a Christmas tree. Can’t understand why people are so impatient. Are they that inconvenienced or endangered? The y should leave it there long enough for as many people as possible to see it and realize how wasteful the City is with our tax dollars.
I don’t understand your last sentence. By not rushing out and haphazardly hauling off the tree, the City is wasting our tax dollars? What? How do those two things go together?
I now realize that the last line was not very clearly or elegantly written. What I meant was that for having some of the highest tax rates, we should have more efficient and timely services including those which would have taken care of this tree including proper maintenance and ultimate removal. I see a lot of Parks Department workers who seem to be compensated very well but are underperforming. A look at the books would probably yield a trove of information about careless and inefficient spending, too. But that’s the nature of government in general.
Many NYers haven’t handled power tools in their lives. This is not complicated. Get a wood chipper, 2 chainsaws, some protective goggles, and start working.
Yeah, and where do you store your chainsaw and woodchipper?
And two turntables and a microphone?
Love these progress reports! Thank you!
Why does it need a speedy removal? I don’t see the rush
@Gus, it sounds like you have the latest from the department (remove the tree next week). In the spirit of transparency, below is the response from NYC311 a few days ago after I reported it.
By the way, the odds of this occurring are incredibly rare (but it did happen to me). According to ChatGPT “I can emphasize that the odds are extremely low—well below 1 in a million, if not even more remote.”
—
DPR provided the following information:
NYC Parks created a work order for the tree condition. Please note that addressing this work can take up to a year or more depending on the higher priority work identified during this period and resources available to address this work. NYC Parks work priority categories range from Category A through D, with A being the most critical and time-sensitive. We will complete all work in Category A first and address work in lower priority categories in accordance with available resources. For more information about the Tree Risk Management Program, visit the NYC Urban Forest page on the NYC Parks website at nyc.gov/parks/trees. Alternatively, you may choose complete the work yourself by hiring an independent contractor. The contractor must complete a Tree Work Permit application on the NYC Parks website at nyc.gov/parks/trees.
work will be scheduled
Thank you 72nd resident for your in depth reporting 😊which should answer everyone’s questions. It will be gone when the time comes. Meanwhile this is a great opportunity to check it out for fungi and examine the top most branches which one doesn’t get to see this close up too often.
The question remains – WHY did the tree come down? Disease? Soil toxic?
Riverside Park does not have an arborist and hasn’t for a long time. There are reports going back at least a decade flagging up this problem and predicting serious deterioration of the park’s forest if that situation didn’t change.
Welp…
Agreed. See my response to you, above. Part of the issue with falling trees is not only unhealthy root systems, but erosion, and lack of maintenance of the upper parts of the trees. Many of the trees look okay on the outside, but are decaying on the inside. I’ve been volunteering in Riverside for 20 years, and the condition of the trees in my area have always been a problem, which I simply cannot get the Conservancy or the Parks Dept. to address. Rather than tree maintenance and periodic pruning (say every 10-15 years), it’s less expensive (as long as someone doesn’t get injured) for them to wait until a tree falls, then replace it with a new, less expensive (probably not as sturdy) young tree. At this point, they aren’t even taking out the weedy trees that are everywhere.
Someone nearby should set up a tree cam so people can watch it. Put some ads on it. Boom. Lots of funding for Riverside Park. It will be almost as good as watching the Yule Log on TV on Christmas.
What’s the big deal? If a tree had to fall in RSP, this appears to be the ideal place for it to happen. It didn’t hurt anyone, did it? It’s not blocking any paths, it didn’t knock down any lampposts, and it didn’t damage any metal fences or stone walls. Of COURSE it’s going to take a few days to arrange for the workers and machinery needed to remove it. It is not an emergency, and it doesn’t look as if anyone has been inconvenienced.
So what’s the fuss. They’ll get to it when they get to it. No emergency here, it’s not blocking anything, noone is harmed or hurt. Soon it will be a memory that will be forgotten.
I don’t get it. What’s the big deal? Why is the West Side Rag spending so much time of this non-story. The tree is not a hazard and dead trees are good for the environment. Provide nourishment to the soil and shelter for organisms.
Please improve the maintenance of RSP.
The City, and the RPC, can’t even figure out how to turn the streetlights off during the day.
Relax the criticism, they’ll get to it. Meanwhile, such a cool jungle gym for the kids to play on. Let it stay for a while.
So what….. the tree is down… not in anyone’s front yard, etc. the parks deptmrnt will get to it as soon as possible…..