They chopped down the only two apple trees in a local park
The building with the clock tower in the picture below is my local public library. The iron fence behind the guy in the white hat encloses a park behind the library. It had two crab apple trees in it. As far as I could tell, nobody else knew it produced crab apples. The branches were higher than you could reach or even see the crab apples since they were the size of grapes.
Still, the fruit would drop to the ground in the fall. Little yellow crab apples would cover the ground. I would collect them and eat them. I suspect most Americans wouldn’t like them because of their tang, but I found them plenty sweet.
A few months ago I noticed one of the apple trees gone. I asked a park curator. They said the tree was diseased. Then a couple weeks ago, I took the above picture. Besides the aforementioned library building and iron fence, you may notice the tree mulching machine on the left and the branches of the crab apple tree behind the traffic cone.
They had cut the tree down. I didn’t bother asking why since I knew they’d give an answer so close to sounding designed to mollify neighbors, like that it was diseased and became a safety hazard, that I wouldn’t believe them and could figure they could have let it keep growing. I’m inclined to believe the curators do care about maintaining the trees, but I’m also skeptical.
Anyway, the apple tree is dead and gone now.
Come to think of it, YIMBY people always say they want more housing built in their neighborhoods. Why don’t we consider it enthusiastic to put more trees in neighborhoods? Birth rates show population declining soon and the population density of Manhattan is well below historic levels.
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