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NYC Parks & Recreation is offering a $500 reward to find out who wantonly chopped down a grove of Eastern Red Cedar trees in Inwood Hill Park. The trees were planted in 1996 and were thriving, until visitors to the park discovered that 35 of the Red Cedars had been hacked to death with something like an ax. Surrounding species of trees were left unharmed. Someone out there has a serious problem with Red Cedars. In November 2006, park officials found 28 similarly chopped Red Cedars in a separate section of the park.
The planting of the Eastern Red Cedars is part of a project to reestablish flora native to the Inwood Forest, which is one of the oldest natural places in Manhattan. Anyone with information on who might be behind the criminal acts should contact the 34th Precinct at (212) 927-2640. Arborcide is a serious crime, with fines of up to $15,000 and a year in jail for the destruction or harming of a tree. Parks Commissioner Adrian Benepe did note that if one sees someone in the park with an ax or saw, you should call 911 instead.
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I think you mean arboricidal
let me axe you a question bout this
Treefucker.
I used to think all those crazy plot lines they came up with in the various editions of Law and Order were just too far fetched, even for NY. That was before I moved here. Since moving and reading The Gothamist, I now know that nothing is impossible in this crazy city. Some one out there has a specific reason to chop down red cedars. They also have the stealth, and the stamina to chop down 30 at a time. Who is this person, are they a chronic allergy sufferer? Were they tied to the aforementioned trees as a child and taunted? Were they possibly participating in a scavenger hunt where 30 red cedars held a particularly large point value?
An aspiring pencil-maker? Red Cedars are the most popular tree for pencils.
follow the bark.
The should go down south. They grow so thick they are a nuisance species that everyone cuts for fence posts or sells them off to make cedar lumber for furniture or to make shavings for hamster cages. I have 60 acres in Arkansas that I had stripped of those things a few years back because they were killing out the pine I had planted. Maybe people cut them before Christmas. They make a popular Christmas tree in other parts of the country.
NY has a lot of people with a lot of issues. I suspect the suspect here is a white male.
It takes a brave man to go after trees that can't fight back.
I'd like to see poetic justice in this. It'd be great to hear that a man holding an axe was found crushed under a red cedar. Better him than that poor doctor last week.
You are hiking through the woods (Inwood is really forested) and you see a man with an ax, call 911.
Absolutely, definitely. Also, get the hell out of there.
BTW, I hope this guy gets a splinter that infects and they have to cut off his hand.
And if he's carrying an ax and wearing a hockey mask, run through the trees blindly screaming....
Does this have anything to do with the big blue ox spotted in astoria?
If memory serves, it was Henry Stern who coined the term arborcide during his tenure as Parks Commissioner.
I will defer to Barry Popik on the matter of coinage. He cites newspaper appearances of the word "arborcide" in a 1904 article in the LA Times, a 1947 article in the New York Times, and the LA Times again in 1955.
So someone wanted to build a house with Red Cedars. Big deal.