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Save Last Crabapple Trees in McCarren Park, Advocate Says

By Gwynne Hogan | July 22, 2016 7:41am
 Two of the last remaining crab apple trees blew over during a storm Monday.
Save the Hawthorns in McCarren Park
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WILLIAMSBURG — Severe thunderstorms downed a half dozen trees in McCarren Park on Monday, including two decades-old crabapple trees that were among the last remaining in the park's southeastern corner.

Now tree-lover Amir Yarkoni fears for the fate of the three crabapple trees still standing. He worries that the next big storm could finish them off too.

"[They're] like a ballerina standing on a toe," Yarkoni, 64, said, pointing out the trees' low and wide limbs supported by relatively thin trunks. "It's not stable."

Yarkoni, who helped start the Green Dome Community Garden about 20 years ago across from McCarren Park's crabapple grove, plans to bring attention to their plight at this Saturday's Farmers Market and follow up with a petition to the Parks Department and local politicians, he said.

He hopes the Parks Department's forestry unit might build a type of support structure or scaffold to take the weight of the tree limbs off the trunk so in forceful winds, less pressure would be placed on the fragile root system.

"They're overly burdened," he said. "They have way too many leaves on them. They're heavy. They're old."

A forestry worker at McCarren Park on Thursday estimated that the fallen crabapples were between 40 and 80 years old. The Parks Department said they were closer to 25 and called them middle-aged.

Yarkoni, a landscaper, florist and sculptor, has adored the crabapples in the two decades he's frequented McCarren Park.

"Look how gnarled they are, gnarled and twisted and full of character and full of age," he said.

Parks Department spokeswoman Maeri Ferguson said that Monday's storm hit trees in Brooklyn the hardest.

"A vast majority of the trees in McCarren Park came out of the storm unscathed, including the much older 60- to 70-year-old London Planes on the perimeter of the park," Ferguson said.

The six trees that toppled over in Monday's storm include two redbuds, two crabapples, a pin oak and a red tree oak and all were considered middle-aged trees. 

"The damage caused was typical for a severe thunderstorm — nothing out of the ordinary," she said.

Ferguson encouraged people to report fallen trees or ones in danger of falling to 311.

Meanwhile, Yarkoni has watched the crabapple grove dwindle in the years since he started coming to the park.

Some died during Hurricane Sandy, others toppled over in smaller storms. The branches of two of the remaining crabapples have intertwined branches, leading Yarkoni to surmise that their livelihood might be rooted in that co-dependence.

"There's so much beautiful romantic metaphor there," Yarkoni said.

The third crabapple's trunk is knotted and mostly hollow.

It may be too late for that tree he said, "but maybe we can save the last two.

"Enough is enough."

The Open Space Alliance which oversees stewardship of North Brooklyn Parks didn't return a request for comment.