Shortly after sunrise, on a February morning in 2023, a tree removal company showed up across the street from our home and began their city-ordained massacre of one of the few green spaces in our corner of town. They took out seventeen trees. I was working out of town when it happened, but I swear I could hear the buzz of chainsaws from three hours away.
The sentry of trees, of the Platanus genus, were estimated to be at least fifty years old, some with trunk diameters of more than a meter. Custodial and healthy, they cast their leafy shade on steaming streets in the summer, turned the neighborhood golden in the autumn, and sprouted coiling green buds when sparse April sunshine poked through the murky northern European veil of clouds. In stark winter months, they cracked the horizon with Ansel Adams austerity; their naked branches stretched towards our windows, our rooftops, our sky. Our sky. People in charge sometimes forget that the sky belongs to all of us. The plane trees were home to birds, squirrels, insects, and a resting place for the daydreams of our neighbors. All of us liked to sit on our city balconies and pretend we were in the countryside. The air quality was so much better on our block than it was elsewhere in town.
The trees were princely and generous. Now they are long dead.
I live in Germany, a country with a reputation for protecting green spaces, focusing on the environment, and leaning into the climate crisis with proactive policies that protect our natural resources. The decision to murder the trees took me by surprise. Our planet is melting. During a time when every responsible city in the world should provide more sustainable green space to citizens, why would my town decide to chop down more than a dozen giant trees?
**
I have always lived around trees. My childhood home in Pittsburgh’s Chatham Village community—now a national landmark—was surrounded by a verdant enclave of oaks and maples. The forest was full of vines for Tarzan swings, tree-climbing, and hiding places. My childhood trees, with their solid trunks and swaying limbs, inspired me to leap and tumble, run and roll. I collected sticks and fallen branches and endeavored more than once to build a secret fort, a castle, a hideaway. In a pre-Martha Stewart attempt at eight-year-old creativity, I gathered crisp autumn leaves, shiny buckeyes, and acorns for abstract centerpieces on a playground picnic table.
My sister, Badass Randy, and I staged vine-swinging shows, some of which were attended by my long-suffering father. Randy, whose childhood motto was let’s go die, was extremely talented on the vine. Less courageous than she, I oversaw the push that sent her soaring out over the hollow. I was also responsible for singing the George of the Jungle theme song, because what good is a Tarzan show without a soundtrack? BA Randy hung upside down, with one hand, twisting and flipping while the rest of us (except for me, because I was singing) held our collective breath. One time she smashed headfirst into a giant oak and plummeted a good twenty feet to the cushioned forest floor. She stood up, brushed herself off, and took a bow. My father had his hands over his eyes.
“Why did you stop singing?” Randy shouted at me. She had a bark imprint on her forehead for weeks.
One year, Randy and I stole a couple of porcelain figurines from my grandmother’s treasure and junk-filled attic and buried them in a somber ceremony under the huge catalpa tree in her side yard. In 1965 we called the catalpa an Indian Toby tree—and we were certain we would one day come back, like the indigenous Americans we were not, to excavate our valued possessions, confident the tree would keep them safe. I have yet to return, but I’m sure the figurines are still there.
I attended Chatham College, a women’s school located on the old Mellon estate, where rare trees framed former homes of industrial-age titans. My classmates and I lived in the timeworn villas—studying, laughing, drinking cheap wine and eating pricey chocolate cake—encircled by trees older than our great-grandparents, genuinely trusting that all resilient things—stately homes, trees, colleges exclusively for women—were golden and enduring.
In New York City, where I lived for fifteen years, the streets were lined with ginko trees, those skinny, stalwart green pillars that do well in metropolitan settings. A trip to Central Park felt like a stroll into an arboreal Emerald City; the park’s broad swath of green wrapped its arms around anyone seeking a soothing respite, a hiding place, a meditative retreat from a callous and chaotic city.
Our first home in Germany, a modest house with a large piece of property, hosted several hundred trees, including a fair number of white-barked birch. Every spring when the leaves started to pop, we could count on at least one cranky neighbor ringing our bell to demand that we chop down a path of trees so he could get better satellite reception. Every year we shouted a resounding no! The trees, we claimed, were more important than the Great British Bake-Off or the Kardashians or whatever he was watching.
My husband, John, built a treehouse for our son—who was slightly disappointed because it didn’t come with a leather Chesterfield sofa and Rothko art collection. More successfully, John hung hammocks, swings and, yes, Tarzan ropes for our daughter—a pint-sized BA Randy—who spent the better part of her childhood covered in mud. The forest was on a slippery slope, perfect for terrifying sled rides, with or without snow. I covered my eyes and hummed the George of the Jungle theme.
We hired a forester to survey our property every year. He told us when a tree looked unhealthy (an imprecise science) and warned us if it threatened neighboring homes. This happened several times and we reluctantly agreed to have the trees removed. I cried every time. The sound of a chain saw can bring me to my knees.
The trees surrounding our home grew older and so did we. Our children grew tall in their shade, breathed the fresh air encouraged by their glorious existence, and swung from branches strong enough to carry their lanky adolescent bodies into adulthood. Eventually the kids left home. The trees stayed in place, ready to protect the next family lucky enough to live in their presence. We sold the house. The new residents promised to love the trees as we had loved them. They still send me photos once in a while. I say to my husband, “Look! There’s the hanging beech; there’s the giant oak; there’s the pillar cherry.”
If you’ve read Peter Wohlleben’s The Secret Life of Trees, you understand the amazing processes at work in forests every day. Trees are social beings—they have families and friends. They communicate. They protect each other and they protect us. We should do everything we can to return the favor.
**
The trees in our current neighborhood were cut down to make way for the construction of an imposing new courthouse, one meant to host the biggest tax fraud scandal in EU history. The trials will take place right across the street from our apartment building.
Prior to breaking ground on the project, my husband, daughter, and I attended a townhall meeting meant to placate the environmentally conscious residents of our neighborhood. We knew the decision to eliminate the trees had long been made—no amount of “save the trees” protesting was going to influence the people in charge of stupid decsions, but at least they had the sense to act like they cared about our concerns.
Nine older white men sat on the committee—not that there’s anything wrong with that, but really? About fifty community residents attended—more than half of them were women. My husband and I decided that we would each get up and make a speech. In preparation we consulted with our friend, Ellen, who has a PhD in Tree Eco Physiology. Because of Ellen’s expertise we were armed with science-based facts about trees and their effects on the air we breathe, the ground we walk on, the shade they supply.
It’s one thing to halfway master a foreign language; it’s quite another to stand up at a German town hall meeting and make a science-based speech about forestry. John did quite well on his part about trees and oxygen and even told a few jokes. Note: An American telling a joke in German is already funny, so he had a head start on the laughs.
When the microphone was passed to me, I was all set with my emotional talk about the root system that connects a family of trees. In short, if you cut down one tree, the others feel it, the ground becomes weaker, and the earth’s ability to absorb water becomes compromised.
The word for root in German is “Würzel.” The word for spice is “Gewurz,” You might guess where this is going. I had confidently practiced my speech using the wrong word, speaking with great passion about the spices stabilizing the ground. Julia started nudging me and muttering the correct word under her breath—Würzel, Würzel, Würzel,, Würzel. I finally realized my mistake. I also got a laugh but maybe for the wrong reason.
After the meeting, John looked at me and said: “Parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme.”
Herbs, not spices, I thought, but who was I to correct anyone at that point?
The predictable outcome? The trees were (cinnamon) toast. A committee of nervous male city officials, anxious to get a profitable government contract, ignored our heartfelt pleas about roots and spices and oxygen, and cut down seventeen majestic trees so they could build an impressive building in which to spin the balding wheels of justice.
We have since considered renting balcony rights to photographers jostling for a money shot of one of the billionaire defendants pulling up to the curb, except you know how it goes with billionaire defendants. They usually don’t show up to face the music, pay the piper, or make amends. It’s unlikely any of the culprits will be found guilty—many of them have already fled the continent. They are probably living in places lush with trees; they probably have tasked their decorators with the purchase of Chesterfield sofas and art collections for the treehouses they will design for their grandchildren.
**
The day before our neighborhood trees were chopped down, my sixty-five-year-old husband walked among them and gently touched their trunks. Bright red slashes of paint identified the trees that would fall. John, who is not a woo-woo kind of guy, later told me he thanked them for their quiet, dignified service. He wondered if they knew the end was near.
As Carl Sagan wrote: “This oak tree and me, we’re made of the same stuff.”
Eighteen months after the tree massacre I sit here on my balcony and look at the sparkling new, architecturally-splendid courthouse. It is set to open in a few months. Two of the remaining plane trees frame each end of the new building. I can sense them reaching for each other, extending their arms like parents lunging for the hands of long-gone children, like aging humans waving goodbye to disappearing friends and fading careers, like abandoned generations grasping for the respect they’ve earned.
The late Fred Rogers, in his lilting song for children, perhaps said it best:
Tree, tree, tree;
Tree, tree, tree;
Tree, tree, tree;
Tree, tree, tree.
We love you,
Yes we do,
Yes we do,
We love you.
We should love and protect living things—both giant and small—that honor us with their silent, nurturing presence. Sometimes, it’s that simple.
**
Photo courtesy of Envato. Song lyric courtesy of Fred Rogers Productions.
Robin Meloy Goldsby is a Steinway Artist and popular solo piano streaming artist. She is the author of Piano Girl; Waltz of the Asparagus People; Rhythm: A Novel and Manhattan Road Trip.
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