When H. wrote to discuss a building being sold on White and West Broadway — 239 West Broadway, aka 4-6 White — she mentioned that she had the four trees on that corner planted in the 1970s. Proves the power of trees — and patience. It’s hard to picture this corner — or the outdoor seating at One White Street — without them.

I think of that section of Tribeca as being kind of leafy, and it’s worth recognizing that it’s that way because neighbors made an effort.

A few years ago, folks around Laight Street fast-tracked tree planting with cash and sweat. The effort led to the formation of the Tribeca North Neighborhood Association, which addressed the Holland Tunnel traffic issues among other issues.

A sad example: the neighbors at 7-9-11-13 Worth planted four trees in 2018; sadly two were demolished — along with the iron tree guards they had installed — by the Parks Department a year ago, though they promised to replace them.

The City Council passed a local law in 2023 that required the city to create an urban forest plan and increase the city’s tree canopy by 30 percent in 10 years; Mayor Adams did so in 2024, and put $136 million in the FY23 budget to plant trees in the most heat-vulnerable neighborhoods by the end of 2027. Last May, the Parks Department was scoping out spots along Chambers Street for trees.

More recently, Mayor Mamdani’s administration has released a report — along with several partners with the same title with a three-pronged approach to caring for existing trees and planting new ones. The new goal is 30 percent by 2040.

The Parks Department has a new program called Vital Parks, where you can see how a neighborhood compares to another across all sorts of open space measures, including street trees. Citywide, 42 percent of residents live on a block with street trees. In Community District 1, only 23 percent of us have street trees on our block.

And for a bigger perspective: the Parks Department maintains more than 600,000 street trees across the city and 5.7 million trees overall. (The city has a total of 7 million, since some of them are on private property.) NYC Parks planted 18,000 trees in FY24.

They have also created a tree map, and have so far logged 800,000 citywide. (You can volunteer to help map.) A quick click shows that Broadway is pretty high and dry, and there are definitely gaps. Tribeca’s many sidewalk vaults don’t help the cause; but there are always planters…