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Oak Square residents shall never see a poem as beautiful as a tree, because a developer just chopped the tree down
By adamg on Sat, 02/12/2022 - 1:25pm
Wood chipper was busy this week.
Brad Squirrels was among those who attended a rally outside the former Presentation Church on Washington Street in Brighton this morning where a developer tore down a 150-year-old birch tree on the edge of the property.
Developer Peter Davos of West Roxbury bought the church property for $4 million last year but has yet to file any plans for the 2.9-acre site - just up the hill from where another developer recently told the BPDA it would build a 70-unit condo building.
WBZ reports Davos is planning housing on the site and that he issued a statement that he just couldn't save the tree and put in the housing.
Among those attending today's protest: City Councilor Liz Breadon and state Rep. Kevin Honan.
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Comments
Magoo sez
Not adorable. Magoo.
Get over it
Oh no, an old tree! What will we ever do!
There was nothing amazing or special about that tree. We don't have to save every one of them. Welcome to A CITY. Not every tree is going to fit our future. New trees can be planted.
Man, I wish people stopped giving such a damn about what someone else does with their land.
You’re awfully defensive.
.
Wow, not true
Wow, not true at all. A 150 year old birch tree is exceptional. This was a rare specimen.
Very much not true
Planting a new tree may be a less effective way to sequester carbon than saving an old tree from the axe.
Rare for what?
Mohawk Trail is almost entirely 300 year old trees Some are over 500 years old.
This is one tree. It was all by itself in a corner of the lot. He didn't plow a forest under.
Get over yourselves.
A 150-year-old birch, healthy
A 150-year-old birch, healthy, in an urban/suburban setting? Exceptional.
-
However, unless the property owner had some obligation under the purchase agreement to preserve the tree...
Update: It was such an
Update: It was such an exceptional birch that it wasn't even a birch.
That photo made me suspicious - didn't look like any birch stump I'd ever seen. I went and read the linked post (apparently the first person here to do so). It was a beech, not birch. Entirely believable that it reached such a size
Beech
Good catch. Another clue is the age; birches are short-lived. A 150-year-old birch would be truly ancient. A 150-year old beech is in its prime.
So this noble beech has suffered the double indignity of being lopped in its prime, probably to make space for a life sciences lab, and of posthumous demotion to the condition of a lowly birch.
Yes.
Yes.
I don't know much about trees. There might be many varieties of birch, for all I know. The only one I know about is a nice hard-ish wood when it's still only two or three inches in diameter. As they get bigger (and I don't think I've seen any much bigger than 6-8" diameter), they get that white, papery bark, dry out (or maybe rot? I don't know), and eventually fall over under their own weight.
I had no idea
I had no idea that the Mohawk Trail went anywhere near Brighton.
Neither did I
You can learn so much at Universal Hub. /s
And almost none of them...
And almost none of them -- in fact, none that I'm aware of -- are birches. White pines, yes. Hemlocks, yes. Birches? Absolutely not.
This is quite the display of ignorance you're putting on here.
So are you.
.
How so?
How so, Pee Wee Herman? Birch was what was reported, birch was what I responded to. I am a fan of trees, but I can't distinctly identify many species from a bad photo of a stump covered with sawdust.
Wait a minute...
You mean you didn't sit under this tree's shade for the last 50 years and take its leaves home to put in your scrapbooking and make sweet love to your significant other and name your firstborn "Forrest" on account of "where he was conceived and not because of that Hanks movie" as you tell all your friends who asked?
This stump was the first you'd even heard of it?
Cool.
I'd feel better about this
If there was a chance that the guy will lose anything on his $4M investment...which he won't, because he'll either successfully build and sell housing, or he'll get bailed out, because he's rich.
These people don't lose. That tree was unfortunate to be an American tree.
Well, Kaz...
You have LOTS of duplicate....
... wells, further down in the thread.
It'd be good to know more
It'd be good to know more about the health of the tree without immediately jumping to conclusions. Lots of birch trees are in rough shape in the city unfortunately.
I agree. I considered that possibility.
But I have already jumped to the conclusion that although the developer, Peter Davos, apparently has no immediate plans for the property, he felt he needed to act fast to get rid of this extraordinary and well loved tree before anyone could raise any more objections. Sneaky move, Pete.
Put it back.
Right now.
Don't Laugh
I was talking with a guy who has a family member on Weston DPW.
When trees along streets fall in storms, the DPW has gotten calls from residents telling them to upright the tree back into place.
You’re kidding
His land, his right
I don’t remember anyone protest at the same spot when the Diocese was diddling kids, yet ironic the article about this is about just that!
“Former Dorchester priest who was convicted of molesting three boys now accused of molesting girl”
The council woman and the mayor need to revaluate their priorities or the voters will.
Did people know?
When "the Diocese" was "diddling kids", did "anyone" know?
Ouch. I hope Boston can get a tree ordinance
like the one Somerville put in place, or ideally an ever better one.
Well...
Well...
Well...
Well...
Well...
More wells
Than Reagan.
Two days in
We are two days into this shitfight already and nobody has yet taken the time to acknowledge the awesomeness of Brad Squirrels’s name????