NY Daily News On Cranberry Street Arborcide: RIP “Moonstruck” Tree

By on February 4, 2014 10:01 pm in Brooklyn Heights

The New York Daily News reports on the Cranberry Street tree that was taken down last week by the city. While we cited its appearance in the 1970 film “The Landlord” the NYDN took a more populist route by calling it the “Moonstruck tree”. Sure… why not, right? After all it’s the crown jewel of movies shot in our humble historic neighborhood. We are totally devastated by this act of tree terror.. right?

“I was surprised when I saw it cut down,” Brooklyn Heights octogenarian Sam Buck, tells the tabloid. Adding a heaping dose of FEH by saying, “I’m not too emotional about it…But it was a nice tree.”

NYDN: A spokeswoman for the Parks Department said that the agency cut down the oak tree after an “extensive evaluation” that started last fall revealed that the tree was hazardous and diseased by a “wood decay fungus.”

“The evaluation included using a resistograph to measure the amount of sound wood inside the tree,” said agency spokeswoman Meghan Lalor, who added that the Parks Dept. began its evaluation after a call was made to 311 regarding the tree.

BHB reader “Cedric”, who tells us he placed a call to 311, sent along more photos of the diseased tree stump along with this new dispatch:

Here are some pictures of the tree felled on the corner of Cranberry Street and Columbia Heights. It looks like the tree had been badly damaged by the fungus that was visible from the outside so it looks, therefore, as though felling the tree was the right thing to do although one should ask someone competent before drawing a conclusion.

The question is, then, why was it allowed to deteriorate so far?

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  • John Susino

    This arborcide has been going on all over Brooklyn. My street in Gravesend has lost 3 majestic trees in the past six months that seemingly had no indication of
    death or disease. I believe this is nothing more than “make work” jobs by the Parks Dept. designed to prevent layoffs at the expense of these 100+ year old trees.

  • David on Middagh

    Seeing trees removed is distressing to me, too.

    I think the Parks Dept. is doing its best, maybe erring on the side of doing a controlled take down a few years earlier than the tree might have been knocked over by storm, just to avoid car crushings/ house damage/ people conked on the head.

    I doubt the fellings are “make work” when the Parks Dept. already can’t keep up with routine pruning. But I didn’t see your Gravesend trees, and I’m not an expert.

  • Andrew Porter

    Don’t forget that the Parks Dept. cut way back on tree inspections and trimming, so much so that the BHA had to co-pay the costs of trimming dead branches, etc., when this was done last year.