"Arborcide" in Inwood Hill Park again by Daniel P. Bader Almost a year to the week after 35 eastern red cedar trees were hacked down and left in Inwood Hill Park, a total of 17 more trees were chopped down or damaged on or around Feb. 21. “We found out about it at the end of February, about the day after it happened,” said Northern Manhattan Parks Administrator Jennifer Hoppa. “I had been there a day earlier.” Hoppa, in her natural gas-driven Parks Department car, showed police detectives the damage on March 16. 
This time two tulip trees were axed southwest of the Shorakapok Rock landmark, leaving on ly the bottom half of the trees sticking out of the ground, about waist high. Farther uphill towards the Henry Hudson Parkway, fifteen pines, sugar maples and hackberry trees clustered around a gravel paved loop bore abuse from some kind of cutting instrument. Hoppa guessed the damage was caused by an axe and possibly a machete. However, the most obvious damage was done to an enormous, fenced-in cottonwood tree. Easily large enough for a few grown adults to wrap their arms around without touching, the southeastern face of the tree is cleaved, its shaved yellow guts spilled onto the ground. Hoppa said the damage to the massive tree was done in early February – separate from the more recent downing of the tulip trees. “My expectation is that it happened at night,” Hoppa said. “We get lots of foot traffic in the park.” Bird watchers often hang out in the area, hoping to spot one of the park’s 150 species of birds, and the area is popular with dog walkers. All the damaged and destroyed trees are native to Manhattan and Inwood Hill Park, the last thumbnail of original forest on the island. The Parks Department plans to plant more trees through the MillionTreesNYC program this spring, but not in the same place as those most recently vandalized. Hoppa estimated that the tulip trees, which measured roughly five inches in diameter, were planted in the last 10 years, while the towering cottonwood was decades old. She has received calls and emails from all over the city regarding the arborcide, and media, like NY1, WNYC, the Daily News and The New York Times have been drawn to this second incident, which is so close in date to last year’s March 7 attack. “People were furious, and understandably so,” Hoppa said of the calls and letters. Community Board 12 Parks and Recreation Committee chair Elizabeth Lorris Ritter is one of them. “It’s so outrageous,” she said while touring the damage with the Manhattan Times on March 16. “I don’t want to understand it. I want it to stop.” In November 2006, a similar episode occurred in a section of the park called “The Overlook.” Back then, 28 eastern red cedar trees were chopped down and left to rot. Hoppa said keeping more trees from destruction requires more educational outreach to park users and increasing the number of patrols by Park Enforcement Patrol officers, rangers and citizen groups. A $2,000 reward is being offered for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the vandals. Anyone with information is encouraged to contact the NYPD 34th Police Precinct at 212-927-0822.
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