Trees being removed are in red

A group of organized Downtown residents — Save BPC Trees — have started a petition to pressure the Battery Park City Authority to reconsider its plan to fell 500 (!) trees as part of the resiliency project rolling out over the next several years. The Broadsheet covered this already; I never delved into the tree aspect in this post, which is a bigger overview. (AND I have another cued up for the construction going on right now alongside Stuy.)

This is not the first time local residents have had to band together to fight the removal of the tree canopy in Battery Park City parks: In 2021, then-Governor Cuomo tried to locate a memorial to covid’s essential workers in the middle of the Rockefeller Park lawn, a plan that was thwarted and then abandoned.

So: the BPCA is removing 500 mature trees — Battery Park City as a whole has 1700 trees — and replacing them with 525 saplings. Cutting has already started — trees in south Battery Park City near 3rd Place are already gone. And of course Wagner Park saw a huge loss of mature trees: 112 in total.

Current park conditions

“These 40-year-old trees each intercept 1,000+ gallons of stormwater per year and provide cooling, carbon capture, and habitat,” the petition reads. “The new trees that BPCA says will be planted won’t match a 40-year-old canopy on stormwater, shade, or carbon for 20–30 years.”

In the petition, Save BPC Trees is asking the authority to justify the removal of each tree; create design alternatives that are focused on saving trees; and allow for an independent review of the plans by landscape architects with no relationship to the contractors.

I am just sticking with Rockefeller Park here, since that is Tribecan’s main use of BPC parks. And you can see the tree canopy loss even from the illustrations. By my count, there are 37 mature trees scheduled to be felled in Rockefeller, not counting the trees along the north side of Stuy.

Future conditions

The environmental review process for the authority’s resiliency plans is over — it went on for a year starting in 2023. But Save BPC Trees is challenging the BPCA nonetheless in the hopes that an alternative can be found.

You can sign the petition here, or send emails to elected officials here.