Brooklyn’s Prospect Park neighborhood surely has some impressive trees. I stand awed in the shade of a gigantic weeping willow in a tiny neighborhood enclave.
And some interesting characters, at least on my job site, one of five during a day dedicated to corners. That is, replacing the old sidewalks at intersections with colored pedestrian ramps to make them passable for the mobility-challenged. Ped ramps need to be installed in a lot of places, as can be imagined, and this is a multi-year project. A tree inspector comes on board whenever trees appear within fifty feet of the corner, making sure the excavation does not harm the tree roots in question and writing up a report to that effect for New York City. Classic urban tree preservation.
Worth getting up with the dawn to highway it down to Brooklyn to save trees.
The painter Jean-Baptiste Camille Corot wrote to the painter Camille Pissarro, Go to the country—The muse is in the woods. But you don’t have to be in the forest to find your muse, sometimes the urban forest can offer its own inspiration. On the first corner of the day I spy these mystical roots running snake-like through the grass of a lawn.
The guy who drives the backhoe on this job – make that machine, the term backhoe is never employed when you work in this metropolis – the guy who drives the machine has language as colorful as his resplendent tattoos.
I notice the tee shirt of one of the crew before we start work at 7am. This is the man who typically keeps a cigar on hand or between his lips, even as he deploys his shovel.
Freedom Isn’t Free reads the slogan on his tee. I ask the two what that means. America’s not free anymore, asserts the machine driver. It’s worse than Russia.
He tells me he plans to run over anyone who gets in the way of his digger.
Most of the people on the job make it a point to respect me and my professional wishes. If I ask someone to remove equipment — say 2 by 4’s, or a shovel — lying on top a tree pit, they do so immediately. (True, I’ve heard one burly flagger mutter “bee-atch” under his breath as I pass, but I like to see that as a compliment. Sometime I might have to clobber him though.)
Today I spend some minutes under a mature Northern red oak, probably forty feet in height.
It occupies a tiny tree pit, 5×5, the base of its trunk flowing out to the edge of the pit, which was once carefully laid with Belgian blocks.
Edwina, let’s call this lovely specimen — gender fluid. Shading purple window-box flowers that glow beneath its canopy.
Don’t usually see a red oak on these not-so-mean streets and this one is exceptional, its pointy leaves wet after a brief and sudden thunderburst.
You can see the red fissures in the trunk, one distinction of red oaks.
The machine driver removes some of the sidewalk, then lands his bucket with a thump on the fill, banging the ground close to Mike, the person in charge of saw-cutting concrete before excavation begins.
Day not off to a great start when he’s in a bad mood, says Mike.
Me: I thought he was always in a bad mood.
Yeah. Smile, rueful.
A pause while the machine operator drags his bucket again to within a few feet of where Mike stands, scraping up dirt, rocks, old concrete debris.
Pretty dangerous, says Mike. Smiling.
Me. Does he think it’s funny?
Yeah. Still smiling.
I once did see the machine driver in a jolly mood on another site – he popped wheelies in his machine in a busy intersection with the intention of amusing, terrifying all around. Or maybe he intended to terrify.
Excavation goes all the way up to the pit.
Smart Edwina has few visible roots in the fill to speak of that might be in danger of getting scraped up, all under a quarter inch, small enough for a tree inspector not to worry much. I make a note on my report. Smart Edwina, canny enough to focus energies in a taproot. But the gracious hanging lowest branches do brush the arm of the backhoe, so bad on them.
We move on to the next corner. A benefit of wearing a reflective vest and work boots: you can walk across the site unimpeded.
Good if you’re hustling out with a full bladder in quest of local facilities. You don’t expect me to go against a hydrant, do you?
Especially one of New York City’s beautiful vintage hydrants. (Could probably be harvested and re-sold in a fancy Prospect Park home goods store.)
Immediately I spot something nice: Suds on Eighth Avenue. A laundromat!
Can I use the bathroom? I plead politely.
Only peepee though! The busy, preoccupied proprietor.
Yes, I say reassuringly.
Go ahead.
Vibrant NYC yellow-cab mural as I go back out the door to the work site.
So many of these older trees tend to overflow their tree pits. A natural byproduct of their age.
Some mess with the sidewalks surrounding them.
New York City is not perfect regarding trees. What municipality is? But for the most part it recognizes these wise old specimens for what they are — important! — and fixes the sidewalks rather than removing the tree.
Note the curve in the concrete flag. That’s deliberate. Contractors are required to build the sidewalk around that wise old trunk.
Quite different then my “green” little hometown, where I was appalled recently to see the powers that be remove a two-hundred-year-old street tree, a sycamore. Why? The resident whose property abutted the sidewalk complained. Someone, she said, had threatened a lawsuit after tripping in front of her house. The solution? Not to make the necessary sidewalk repairs but instead to take down the tree.
Yes, it was a giant. I broke into tears when I drove along the main drag and saw it, silly as that may sound. This tree provided the only canopy along this stretch of road.
The only saving grace as I see it rather snarkily is that the homeowner’s energy bills will no doubt go up because they have no boughs to shade their roof. Karma being a bee-atch.
Back to the more generous, quite deliberately engineered canopy of New York City, though. A few blocks away from the majestic willow, a perfect Kentucky coffeetree.
Its bark some of the coolest in the tree kingdom.
Character also abounds in the man-made neighborhood attributes when I peel my eyes away from the trees to take a walk down the block.
New York humor.
Privileged Prospect Park children and their beleaguered nannies. (Note candy. It’s nine o’clock in the morning.)
Fabulous offerings at a run of the mill, neighborhood “pie and cake shop.” Prospect Park prices. I get coffee and make myself wait. On the other hand, carpe diem – when we leave this location I might never be back. We’re driving all over Brooklyn for this job’s locations.
Later I treat myself to the most delicious lamb kofte kebab sandwich I have ever consumed.
Dog walkers. Interesting tee shirt: Don’t Be a Follower. Make Your Own Trax!
I once compiled an inventory of tee slogans I saw doing tree inspections on similar sidewalk locations in the Bronx.
Good Mood.
I’m Not Sorry.
Today Is Cancelled.
Respect My Authority.
My First Year Being Rich.
I Am the Reason Mama Needs Medicine.
Huge.
Fear Is an Illusion.
I Would Give Up Shopping But I’m Not a Quitter.
Big or Small, Let’s Save Them All.
It Wasn’t Me.
I Rule the Streets.
Marvel.
These are only a drop in the bucket, believe me. Feel free to appropriate.
I can relate to some of them. I Rule the Streets. Marvel.
Baby prickly fruits of sweetgum, as sweet in Prospect Park as anyplace else in the world.
Near the corner, an effulgent Japanese pagoda. Condition: excellent, I write in my report.
Always amazing to see pure summertime blossoms against the grit, the brick and the concrete — the urban forest that is New York City.
Marvel. I Own the Streets. Is this the best job in America? Perhaps. At least today.
Jean Zimmerman 