Interviewees are introduced in the script with their first and last names, then subsequently referred by their first name only. On-scene background sounds are italicized in [brackets]. For the producer, Austin Cope, a distinction is made between “narration” (recorded in-studio) and “scene” (recorded on location).
***TRANSCRIPT***
Elizabeth Quaranta:
So, when you’re living in an urban environment, your concentration is really on paying your bills. You gotta pay that rent. You gotta pay ConEd, you got to pay your cable, your cell phone. So that comes first. Trees are not a priority until you get sick.
Austin Cope (narration):
This is Elizabeth Quraranta. She lives in the Bronx and leads an organization called Friends of Mosholu Parkland. It helps take care of the trees and green spaces in the neighborhoods of Norwood and Jerome Park.
Elizabeth:
When my mother was diagnosed with cancer, that whole year that I took care of her, it was beyond household duties. It was more, going to the park. It was more taking a walk and looking up at the trees. You know why? Because you know that tree is going to be there way after you’re gone.
Austin (narration):
People can request to have the New York City Parks Department plant trees along the street. But after the trees are planted, Elizabeth says, the city doesn’t spend much time educating people on how to take care of them.
Elizabeth:
You know, if you’re going to have trees planted on a block, then ideally you should want the residents on the block to come out and watch the process, bring flowers out, explain how the tree needs to be taken care of.
Austin (narration):
She says one solution could be having the city post in neighborhood Facebook groups and passing out fliers to building residents and managers.
Elizabeth:
Let them know, ‘Hey, we are coming in and we’re putting trees on the block because’… give them all the benefits…
Austin (narration):
There are studies that reflect trees’ benefits on air quality and health, and their reductions on crime and climate change impacts.
Elizabeth:
…and this is the date that we’re going to do it. Please share with your residents, have your residents come out, maybe after the trees have been planted or on the day, offer some kind of refreshment or something, but then introduce the trees on the block as their new neighbor. Trees are tenants of the block. They’re not an infrastructure. They reside here.
Austin (narration):
The city of New York has almost 690,000 trees along its streets. They get their water and nutrients from a patch of soil about five feet wide and ten feet long. They witness freezing winters and burning summers. They take the stress of car exhaust, dog waste, and thunderstorms. And through it all they help provide shade, purify the air, and give residents a tiny connection to nature. So, if people in the city agree with Elizabeth that trees are an important part of life, what happens if we forget that we are also an important part of theirs?
Sirio Guerino:
Morning.
Austin (scene):
Morning, how you doing?
Sirio:
How you doing, Austin?
Austin (scene):
Alright.
Austin (narration):
Sirio Guerino is another Bronx resident who keeps close track of the trees on his block. When I meet him in mid-April, he hands me a piece of paper with a diagram showing the correct way to take care of street tree beds.
Sirio:
This is for you. This is from the parks department website.
Austin (narration):
He strikes me as the type of guy who likes things to be in order, and doesn’t seem afraid to tell you when they aren’t. Trees aren’t the only thing he’s outspoken about. He also runs an organization called Guerinos Against Graffiti. On my visit, he shows me some of the trees in the neighborhood he’s worried about.
[birds chirping in background]
Austin (narration):
First we stop in front of some apartment buildings to see the right way to take care of the tree beds. The first bed we see is filled with wood chips and fluffy brown soil.
Sirio:
This is a proper way of doing it.
Austin (scene):
How are these two different?
Sirio:
Okay, now, this is done properly because he does not deal with any blocks at all, which means more water for the tree. So the tree will always get its nourishment.
Austin (narration):
For apartments like this, the building owner is in charge of taking care of the beds. The city takes care of the tree itself.
Sirio:
Now, hopefully in the future, he’ll come out, turn the soil, cause you want to irrigate it, keep away any dog mess, and re – woodchip it.
Austin (narration):
But, a lot of times, he says people put stuff in the tree beds they shouldn’t. Sometimes, they’re used like trash cans, and people drop in litter, or construction waste, or furniture. Other times he says they just think certain things look good. The most common examples are heavy rectangular stone bricks, called “Belgian blocks”. These pack the soil down and compress the tree’s roots. The City recommends people pull these blocks out when they start to interfere with the tree’s growth.
[light traffic in background]
Austin (narration):
A few streets later, Sirio shows me a clear example of how people ignore these guidelines. We’re in front of a newly-remodeled cell phone store. Three tree beds here have been filled right up to the trunk with concrete. Little stones are studded in it.
Sirio:
The landlord came in, he should follow the regulations that I gave you. Nope. He let these guys do this.
Austin (narration):
Landlords have to get a permit to do work on or around city trees like this one, and city regulations require the bed to be replaced with topsoil, not concrete.
Sirio:
It’s totally cemented in. They just pour cement in there, and threw the blocks on top, and like, the roots need water. There’s no way these roots are going to get water. There’s no way. There’s no place. Where the hell is it going to get water?
[chainsaw sounds]
Austin (narration):
As we keep walking, we see a line of boom trucks and a team of men in hard hats. They’re holding chainsaws, wearing harnesses, and switching off between driving, cutting branches, and loading them into a wood chipper on the last truck. Cory Peterson is wearing a hard hat and protective glasses with metal screens over the lenses. Behind him is a dark green truck with a branch guard over its windshield. The address for Beucler Tree Experts out of New Jersey is printed on the door.
Austin (scene):
Where you guys working today?
Cory Peterson:
We working here right now on Buell Avenue, just trimming the trees for the parks department. We’re here just to make it safe. Get the dead wood out, elevate so the trucks don’t mess up, clear the street light, so people could walk down and safe at night and during the day, without worrying about getting hurt or hit by branches or leaves, getting mugged in New York, you know [laughs]
Since we in New York trees take a lot of shock due to the fact of the pollution and a lot of the construction and everything that goes on. So trees can die out probably two years, a year, six months. It all depends of the species of the tree and the way – the hazard of all the tree and the condition of the trees, right?
[chipper in background]
Trees should be trimmed every five to 10 years, just to keep the maintenance and the structure of the tree.
Austin (scene):
And what about the dead trees? How do you deal with those?
Cory:
The dead trees – if the trees is located as dead, I would notify the park department with the work order number of the tree and the location where the tree is at and the city itself will come and remove the tree.
Austin (scene):
So you guys don’t remove the tree.
Cory:
We just here doing trimming, sir.
Austin (scene):
Gotcha.
Cory:
The trees is totally dead when it’s, like, hollow out and, um, the city will put a white tag on it and put a staple with the white tag, they identify that the tree is dead.
Austin (narration):
He talks about how to prune different species, how they let people know they’ll be working in the neighborhood, and the app they use to keep track of which trees they’ve cut. When I ask him what he likes about his work, I’m surprised his answer doesn’t have to do with trees.
Austin (scene):
What’s the best part of your job?
Cory:
Working with people. Just dealing with the people, just dealing with the interacting with different cultures, just seeing the city, you know, it’s the best thing, you know, working outside, dealing with mother nature, dealing with the different type of attitude is the best thing.
[chainsaw sounds]
Austin (narration):
Sirio and I talk with Corey for a little while longer, then keep walking. As we’re passing an apartment building, we find one of the dead trees he’s talking about. It’s maybe 15 or 20 feet tall. The bark is brown and peeling; its branches are scraggly and dry. It’s got a big gash in it. Sirio shows me a little square aluminum tag nailed into the trunk.
Sirio:
This little star here? See this? You see it this way. Good morning.
Austin (narration):
A man who looks to be in his 60s makes his way over to us. His name’s Darrell Williams. He says he’s lived in the building for the past 20 years.
Darrell Williams:
They put it up…
Sirio (in background):
You know how many times I’ve called this?
Darrell:
…and as soon as they put it up, kids were swinging on the branches, swinging, you know how kids are. They broke it, it started decaying. I’ve called the city myself a few times.
Sirio:
They give you a number, and say it’s on the list.
Darrell:
It’s an eyesore. I mean, come on.
Austin (narration):
He says it’s been dead for four or five years, but the city’s never removed it.
Darrell:
You know, you call 311 and nothing’s done. I mean, I understand the city’s busy and I’m not making a complaint about that, but I mean, come on, sanitation comes by the block. Everybody sees the tree. People, citizens, police drive through the block, sanitation department. Everybody knows this. Come on. We citizens. We pay rent. We pay taxes.
Sirio:
You pay your taxes, right?
Darrell:
I mean, look at it, look at the bark. That’s an eyesore.
Austin (narration):
He says he’s contacted elected officials several times.
Darrell:
They get your number, ‘we’ll get back to you. They have my number, they never call me. They never call. You know what I’m saying? Contact your congressman, your senator, same thing. They working on it. Five years. We can get a hatchet and chop it down ourselves at this point, but that’s destruction of public property. You know what I mean? So I mean, come on. Do something.
[horn honks]
Austin (narration):
I ask Elizabeth to talk more about how dead trees play into things.
Elizabeth:
They’re not safe in an urban environment because of winds. And because of, you know, inclement weather, people walking on sidewalks. And even though they’re super important for insects, and wildlife, and decomposers and, and, and good for the soil, they don’t belong on a concrete sidewalk. So they need to be removed. They need to be put in a forest area that is just for dead trunks and limbs and branches, so that that decomposition process can start. It turns into compost. They can mulch it up, chip it up and turns right into the compost, but it really – sidewalks – concrete sidewalks and dead trees don’t go together.
Austin (narration):
When I tell her about Darrell’s 311 request, I ask what to do if – like Darrell – someone’s already contacted their elected officials. She says the process to resolve it requires a lot of following up.
Elizabeth:
You want to, not only click on the commissioner of the borough, forwarded to the commissioner of just New York city. There’s also the district manager of this community. At the same time, get it into the hands of the – of the community board, go on to parks committee meeting and follow up every time. ‘What’s going on with this tree? What’s going on with this tree?’ So, unfortunately we have to play – we have to follow up as a resident in the community, even though it’s not our job.
Austin (scene):
I mean, that’s the thing, like, why it takes so much time, you know, why have to go to all this energy, you know, look at– look in your email, look for confirmation numbers. It’s a pain. Why – why do that?
Elizabeth:
Because it’s your block. Because, because it bothers you. Because it’s in your community. Because when you sign your – when you sign your name to the lease, you’re not just signing it to the apartment that you are renting. You’re signing to be part of society in the community. And people forget that. ‘Oh, well, I rent here, so I should have all these services.’ No, you’re part of getting those services in. You’re a part of having those services and when they don’t work, it is your job as a person living in the community, on – on a humanitarian level, to seek out why these services are not working. And I know many people don’t feel that way. They feel like, no, I have enough things to do.
Austin (scene):
Yeah, I mean, that’s the thing. I mean, if the government ignores you in other ways, you know, eventually, what do you do if you get tired of, you know, trying to get the government to pay attention?
Elizabeth:
If the government is not paying attention to you, then you have to figure out another way to get to the government. You know, and I don’t mean in a bad way. I mean, in a way that it tells the government, this person isn’t going to go away and guess what? Their right. You know, you don’t want to tell the government, or you don’t want to tell people that they’re wrong. You want to tell them why you’re doing it and how it affects them.
Austin (narration):
This seems straightforward. But I still wonder how easy it is in real life.
[street sounds]
Austin (narration):
When I started reporting for this piece, I thought street trees would be a relatively innocuous thing to talk about. It’s hard not to love it when a tree gets planted on your street, or to enjoy the benefits from the city’s million-plus trees on the streets and in the parks. But, it’s clear that when it comes to taking care of these trees – even the ones that you pass every day – it gets complicated quickly. Each tree in the city has its own story, its own complex relationship to its environment and to the people in it. And, after seeing a tiny fraction of the city’s street trees, and speaking to an even tinier fraction of the city’s people, one thing is clear. Just as there’s no one way to look at a person you pass on the street, there’s also no one way to look at the trees.
[bird sounds fade out]