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Jessica 'Sunflower' Rechtschaffer Climbs Tree in City Hall Park Protest, Plucked by Police

By DNAinfo Staff on August 2, 2010 1:58pm  | Updated on August 3, 2010 6:27am

By Jill Colvin and Patrick Hedlund

DNAinfo Reporter/Producers

CITY HALL — A woman was arrested for reckless endangerment Monday morning after she climbed a tree in City Hall Park during a protest about community gardens and refused to come down.

Jessica Rechtschaffer, 41, wore a paper sunflower cut out on her head and was dubbed Jessica "Sunflower" by activists from cycling group Times Up!. She scaled the 30-foot-tall London Plane at about 10 a.m. as about a dozen protesters chanted with signs below.

Rechtschaffer is an administrative assistant in Columbia University's department of Middle East and Asian languages and cultures, according to a department website. She was quoted in the New York Times in 2006 boasting that she held the unofficial record for most Critical Mass bike ride-related arrests.

She started her climb Monday using a ladder and then relied on ropes and her feet to hoist herself into the branches, witnesses said.

Police from the Department's Emergency Service Unit urged Rechtschaffer to come down, but she refused.

"She climbed the tree today to send a message to [Mayor Michael] Bloomberg saying we're serious about community gardens," said Ben Shepard, 40, of Brooklyn, a fellow Time's Up! volunteer. "They don't take the gardeners very seriously."

Officers eventually coaxed Rechtschaffer down 45 minutes later by threatening to cut down the park's trees to make room for an inflatable safety mattress, Shepard said.

Police used a harness and a ladder to remove her, before arresting her and charging her with reckless endangerment and obstructing a governmental administration, an NYPD spokesman said.

As Sunflower was led away to a patrol car, she continued imploring her supporters and onlookers to call their City Council representative to help save the gardens.

The group is protesting the Sept. 17 expiration of the Garden Settlement, an agreement that protects the city's community gardens from development. Unless the agreement is renewed, Shepard said, "gardens will be bulldozed one after another."

Shepard said the tree stunt was pre-planned for the protest, which was a repeat of a 1999 display in which a gardens activist, also dressed as a flower, climbed a tree in the park and refused to come down.

In that case, police inflated a raft-like device to catch the man in case he fell. No trees were reportedly harmed in that protest.