Early this morning, as I pulled into the parking lot to catch the bus to New York City, I had to pull around a construction truck that was parked in the middle of the road. Odd, I thought. Why was the truck just sitting there in the dark, seemingly empty?
Moments later, I found out as I saw the bus approaching and stepped out of my car to be greeted by a loud buzzing noise. In less than a minute, a man in a hooded sweatshirt had cut through the trunk of what looked like a 20-year-old beautifully compact tree, fully in bloom.
Twenty years gone. In less than a minute. And when I turned around to catch the name of the company on the truck, it too was gone. A gorgeous tree, laying on the ground, the hit man gone within a minute. And all at 6:10 in the morning, when the parking area would have been quiet except for the three of us who boarded a bus to New York.
“A sin,” one of my fellow passengers said. I glared, anger building, wondering what to do. Miss my bus to chase the truck to confront the guy with the electric saw and ask for a permit? In the split second I had to decide, I thought that the damage was done, the tree was dead and, anyway, what was my complaining going to do?
After all, the tree sat in a small slice of greenery in the middle of a large parking area. What does it matter to have a parking area look, well, more like a parking area? It wasn't in a park or anything. But still, trees should always matter. And rather than have it cut in two, couldn't the owner have moved it to another spot on his property? Offered it for free to someone who wanted to have it moved?
I am curious. I want to find out who owned the land on which the tree sat and who, if anyone, ordered it to be beheaded in the dawn? I’m going to circulate this blog around town and see what I can find. If I can get to the bottom of this hit on nature, I’ll report back.
Oh yes. I live in New Hope, Pennsylvania. The tree was in a large retail area called Logan Square that sits on Lower York Road and is anchored by a Giant supermarket. Across the street from the deceased tree is the UPS Store where we buy our tickets for the Transbridge daily bus service to New York.
I called my husband Tim this morning from the bus and asked him to drive over to the parking lot to take the picture of the victim. Unfortunately by the time he went over 45 minutes later, the tree was gone; only a trail of blooms and dirt remained.
This post originally appeared on NRDC's Switchboard.
Phil Gutis is Director of Communications for the Natural Resource Defense Council in New York City. NRDC is a non-profit organization dedicated to protecting the environment, people and animals. NRDC was founded in 1970 and is comprised of more than 300 lawyers, scientists and policy experts, with more than one million members and e-activists.
