The Manhattan Times

Parks Department to cut down unsafe trees in Indian Road Playground

by Daniel P. Bader

Five trees in Indian Road Playground, which for decades have shaded children and parents during hot summer months, will soon be cut down by the city’s Parks Department due to safety concerns.

The playground, nestled in the east-west stretch of Indian Road a block south of W. 218th Street, is in the beginning stages of a complete renovation that will flower next summer with a new Iroquois-style long house and wigwam for kids to climb on.

Before the renovations began, whenever a good breeze blew the Parks Department, afraid the trees’ brittle limbs and weak roots posed hazardous conditions, was forced to close the playground.

Four black locusts, including one massive arbor that is at least 80 years old and 46 inches around, have reached maturity and are being attacked by a natural fungus. The fifth tree, a maple, has suffered storm damage in the past and, if trimmed as it should be, will become unbalanced.

“Essentially they’re dying in the air,” Parks Director of Manhattan Forestry Bill Steyer said of the fungus-eaten locusts. “When they fall to the ground they’re basically rotted. It’s a natural thing, a natural process where they’ll rot in the forest. That’s what’s happening here but we’re not in a forest, we’re in a playground.”

Steyer and Northern Manhattan Parks Administrator Jennifer Hoppa gave a short tour around the perimeter of the playground for residents in order to explain why so many large trees are being cut down.

The stately 80-year-old locust is in the dead center of the playground. Though the tree appears to be stable, Parks is worried that branches could fall into the playground.

Next to the big tree is another black locust, riddled with cankers and fungus.

“This guy’s not in a great spot, and he’s not feeling so well,” Steyer said.

On the other side of the big tree is another with its main trunk or “leader” cut short by storm damage, and its remaining branches also hang over the playground.

To quantify how ill the trees are, they were given Resistograph tests. For the test a drill spins its way into the tree and measures how much resistance the wood gives. The more resistance the better.

“That’s a 25-inch tree, six inches in it was decay,” Steyer said, pointing to the knobby locust. “The inside of the tree is rotted, you can’t tell looking at it.”

Free from decay, the tall maple has to come down too.

Steyer noted the storm damage – an abrupt stump where it was sawed clean – high up in the air.

“These lower limbs will have to come off, they’re not in good shape,” he said. Removing those limbs, however, will unbalance the tree, which could become uprooted in high winds.

“That will leave us with a leaning crown, right over the equipment,” he said. “It’s a chance we just can’t take.”

Several young trees on the southern perimeter of the playground are of a fast growing variety, Steyer said.

“As far as shade, these are all young thriving trees, and they grow fast.”

Also, Hoppa said, 25 new trees of various species are part of the new design for the park.

“I don’t think we’re going to be doing many black locusts,” she said, with a smile.

The sickly trees will most likely be removed in January.