She was the largest tree on one of the most tree-lined blocks in Brooklyn. Third Street (between 7th and 8th Avenues) in Park Slope, Brooklyn has lost one of its own.
The New York City Department of Parks began the job yesterday and closed the block to cars due to "Emergency Tree Removal." Here are some pictures taken by Eliot Wagner on Monday morning in the midst of that job.
Oh no no no no no. This was the greatest tree on Third Street. A magnificent American Elm, a survivor so far of Dutch elm disease. It breaks my heart. This tree had the perfect elm habit (“shape”), a torquing vase, its trunk leaning into the tangent over the street, its great limbs twisting out.
I would bring visitors to see it.
One or two years ago this blog chronicled another Elm removal further up the street.
Elm trees are more precious to me than gold. But for that, here is a little requiem, by Robert Frost, in grief for this great tree:
Nature’s first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leafs a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.