By Jill Colvin
DNAinfo Reporter/Producer
GROUND ZERO — A 15-foot-tall swamp white oak was secured in a planter, hoisted into the air by a giant crane, and then lowered into an open spot near the center of the 9/11 Memorial Plaza.
With that, the 50th tree was planted at the memorial, which will eventually become home to a small forest of 400 80-foot-tall trees that will form a 6-acre green canopy over the site.
"I think this is just another step. It’s a small one, it’s a symbolic one, but it shows that the World Trade Center is progressing," Mayor Michel Bloomberg, who was on hand for the occasion, said in the fall sunshine after he shoveled dirt over the base of the newly-planted tree.
Bloomberg said the memorial is expected to open to visitors on the 10th anniversary of 9/11, even if the underground museum and some entrances are not complete.
A total of 250 trees are expected to be standing by then.
The planting began on Aug. 28 when 16 trees arrived by flatbed truck from New Jersey.
"Fifty down, 350 to go," said one construction worker at the site, as he looked back at the growing forest of muted gold, yellow and green.
