Architecture and the landscape it inhabits will forever be intertwined. While new construction often rises in a barren landscape, historic structures generally have become more integrated with their natural surroundings. Trees are especially crucial to this integration; they have a special relationship with the structures they grace and shade. The former church building in the photos below had a beautiful relationship with the trees that surrounded it, some for at least 80 years. Younger tress had been planted to fill voids left by older trees which had died.
Recently, all the trees, young and old, were removed from the lot and parkway surrounding the building which is now a private home. The loss has resulted in stark change of character which would take decades to attempt to re-create.
Trees add beauty and shade; they make both walking and driving in town more pleasant.
One of the old trees did have some issues and could have used pruning, but I do not feel that it had to be completely removed.
Even if that one tree had to be removed, the younger trees did not. We planted, nurtured, and watered them by hand with buckets for years. There was no running water at the project in the early days, so we had to haul water to the site.
Recently dismembered tree parts can be seen to the right.
This has made me – and many townspeople – very sad.
So they took them down for a handful of parking spaces. That’s crazy.
It’s hard to tell from these photos, but the parking spaces were already present and had been there since the 1950’s. However, they were not so apparent when the trees were still standing. This is sad on so many levels – a change like this impacts not just a single building, but a whole street or neighborhood. In a very small town, the impact is community-wide.
WTF?????????????
Why would anybody do this?