Big Tree Falls on Joralemon Street

By on August 28, 2011 6:59 pm in Video, Weather


Just as your humble publisher was mulling over when to move his car out of the relative safety of the Cadman Plaza garage (tonight?), comes this dispatch from Karl Junkersfeld:

A very large tree on Jorelemon near Willow Place just came down and i got the video to prove it. Totally wrecked 2 cars that were parked.

And while we’re at it, Val Frankel alerts us about that tree:

Took this picture an hour ago. While we were standing there, a huge branch came down right in the middle of the street. The tourists jumped!

See video after the jump.

Tree down on Hicks Street. BHB Reader Photo: V. Frankel

And BHB reader Amanda Tree (natch!) sends us these photos:

BHB Reader photo: Amanda Tree

Updated Monday morning. Ms. Frankel’s photos is of the Joralemon/Willow Place incident. We regret the error and will get some more sleep.

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  • BeeBop Search

    WOW! I feel like I’m there. Great video.

  • A Neighbor

    Why do these apparently healthy trees fall down in the wind? It’s sort of depressing. It has taken them years to grow.

  • Chris Fohlin

    All of the rain softens the ground and the root systems can’t keep hold, so the tree simply pulls up out of the ground.

  • Stillhere

    The Hicks tree – aka the Mansion House Elm – has been a controversial tree for years and has been in the press/blogs before. It grew literally against the wall of building just inside the courtyard and It was a huge tree. The tenants elected to keep it despite other advice.

    http://www.brownstoner.com/blog/2007/07/mansion-house-m/

    http://www.brownstoner.com/blog/2007/07/historic-height/

  • Joe

    What time did the tree fall? Walked by there around 3:30-4:00 pm and the tree was still intact.

  • stuart

    Trees fall. that’s the nature of trees.
    They grow and grow and one day they fall.
    They are kind of like us.

  • Knight

    How can something happen on Hicks St. near Willow St.? They run parallel to each other.

  • Bette

    So sad to see that lovely perfect tree lying down. It’s almost like they could pick it up since it’s completely intact, and put it back in place and anchor it better, as if it had just been purchased and planted. I guess that’s impractical, but boy I hate for us to lose one of those big ones.

  • GHB

    Bette, sad to lose that tree, but there’s no way it could possibly be saved by propping it up. Totally impractical, and one small breeze would take it down again…RIP, old elm

  • Cranberry Beret

    Knight, I had the same thought initially…but they actually do cross (sort of). Thanks to Robert Moses and the interruption of the BQE, Willow bends north of Middagh and wraps around to the intersection of Hicks and Poplar. It’s kind of an Escher-esque question of when the street stops being Willow and starts being Poplar. (Though the Hicks corner has a Poplar street sign.)

    In any case, I think the original poster was mistaken about the tree, because I didn’t see anything down.

  • Bob Stone

    Some confusion seems to have crept into this story. The tree that the title mentions is (was) on Joralemon Street at Willow Place in Willowtown. I’m learning from the posts that, in addition, the Mansion House elm on Hicks also came down. Both will be missed.

  • Andrew Porter

    If the rootball of a tree is still intact, you actually can replant it. Keep the ball moist and stick it back in the ground. Alas, when the tree is growing in an urban environment, in a very small square of earth surrounded by paving, this is impossible—not to say impracticable.

    Several places in BH where the tree was cut down, with the roots still in the ground, you can see secondary growth coming from the stump. But this will not grow into a tree—more of a many stemmed shrub.