By Lincoln Anderson
New York University’s plan to uproot a row of stately trees along Thompson St. south of Washington Square Park didn’t cut it at Community Board 2’s Parks Committee meeting last week. Board members and neighbors repeatedly took chops at the proposal.
In the end, the committee resolved to urge the Parks Department to reject N.Y.U.’s application for permission to remove the trees. The board’s opinion is advisory only.
N.Y.U. representatives told the meeting that the university wants to fell four trees and transplant another two on the east side of Thompson St. between Washington Square South and W. Third St. The trees must go, they said, because the university intends to lay a hot-water pipe under the sidewalk. The trees also border the site for N.Y.U.’s new Center for Academic and Spiritual Life project, and removing them would make construction easier. Foundation work for the new building will begin soon. The university officials said the trees have to come out by Dec. 15.
Tobi Bergman, the Parks Committee’s chairperson, said that N.Y.U. should have brought the matter to the committee earlier. He noted that scaffolding could be put around trees and their branches “tied back” during construction to protect them.
Of N.Y.U.’s saying it would try to replant some of the trees, Bergman said, “Transplanting is a risky proposition for any tree, except for a small tree.”
Board members and neighbors noted that each side of this block of Thompson St. has six trees, all the same height: To remove all the trees on one side of the street and replant it with smaller ones would destroy the street’s leafy symmetry, they said. Bergman said he believed the trees were all locusts.
Speaking later, Bergman noted the hot-water pipe used to go through the basement of the N.Y.U. Catholic Center, previously on the site. He said the new building could have easily been designed to include the hot-water pipe in its basement.
“It would take up a little bit of space — but it’s the basement, after all,” he said.
“I think N.Y.U. embarked on the design of this without any discussion of whether the trees could stay or not,” Bergman stated. “So they embarked on a plan that essentially doomed the trees. … They’re nice big trees and they’re in good health. It’s nice to keep the trees on both sides.”
On Monday, The Villager asked Alicia Hurley, N.Y.U. vice president for government and community engagement, where the transplanted trees would go.
“We’re in limbo after 90 minutes out at the site today,” Hurley said in an e-mail. “We are bringing in an arborist for a second opinion on transplanting, future sites have not been determined — all is driven by the Parks Department.”
