In Lisbon, We Love Trees. Back in New York, On Roosevelt Island... Not So much
The contrasts reflect a difference in values and respect.
First things that really caught my attention were the trees. People in Lisbon love their trees, allowing them to grow old safely. Sometimes, they push the calçada up awkwardly, turning sidewalks into twisting lumps of tile, testing your balance, twisting your ankles
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A pair of well-aged metrosideros trees in Campo de Ourique’s Jardim da Parada quickly became a favorite when we moved to Portugal from New York a year ago. Fully formed, their trunks are as strong as concrete pillars. Branches twist and bend to maximize sun exposure while retaining grace and a sense of weightlessness.
The pair is unique because in most of the nearby parks, matched sets are rare. Whatever the thinking was, maybe someone’s idea for expressing Portugal’s connections around the world, species in the gardens usually grow solo. Neighbors are not even cousins.
The metrosideros pair somehow made their way from New Zealand to the Iberian Peninsula.
“Lisbon’s gardens feature exceptionally high tree diversity—sometimes with only one of each species—due to a 19th-century passion for exotic, colonial-era botanical collecting, bolstered by a mild climate that acts as an “acclimatization” hub for global flora,” according to one expert.
We’ve been told that the greater part of a tree’s architecture invisibly works its magic underground, but while it’s true that roots systems usually spread horizontally far beyond its branches, they don’t go deep before connecting with the complex civilization of fungal networks known as The Wood Wide Web. Mycorrhiza build out a foundational system intermingling 90% of all plant life, trading nutrients in every direction.
80% or so of a tree’s architecture is visible above ground, but its brains are out of sight. Imagine the blending array of umwelts populating that lightless community under the popular garden. Trees store carbon and send sugars downward while the mycorrhizal networks push nutrients, especially nitrogen, upward.
You see evidence of this love for trees in every variety all over Lisbon. Jardim da Estrela is among the richest, and it’s no surprise that hanging out there mellows us. Voices soften. Bird songs are heard in the middle of the city.
Contrasts with Roosevelt Island
There were once enough trees that Roosevelt Island won the honor of Tree City USA. A plaque greeted visitors near the bridge that brings traffic in from Queens. The program was and still is sponsored by The Arbor Day Foundation.
That plaque is no longer there. Roosevelt Island no longer qualifies.
A small grove of weeping willows was so beautiflly dense it forced me to sweep its soft branches away as I ran through Lighthouse Park. The grove was among the first to go. Damaged by a storm, the trees had their roots dug out and were never replaced.
Later, after I created the Roosevelt Island Daily News, a woman contacted me. She was crying as she wrote. On her way to work that morning, she discovered that two old growth trees had been taken down, without community comment or notice, in the middle of the popular for picnics Rivercross Lawn.
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Investigating, I found that RIOC, the unelected state agency overseeing Roosevelt Island, had sought input from three tree companies, claiming concerns over the trees’ health. Without any public reasoning, it contracted with the one company that believed both trees should die, I discovered from a FOIL request. That company was also the highest bidder. The RIOC manager in charge was Mary Cunneen, now COO. The contract was approved by then COO Shelton J. Haynes, who later became CEO.
Although the wholesale destruction of plants along the shorelines in Southpoint was hideous, I witnessed the worst blow to the tree environment in the autumn of 2021. A beautifully youthful red maple, having lived just 100 of its expected 400 years, was whacked on a stretch of Main Street where cherry trees blossom and people enjoy strolling the promenade below.
Lacking in transparency as always, RIOC representatives mumbled something about the tree being diseased. It wasn’t. Look at the picture. Vibrant with health. The main reason for taking it down, it seems, was in clearing river and skyline views for condo owners in luxury apartments behind it
No one ever came clean with any explanation or rationale.
Money
In a city controlled by Wall Street and real estate developers, money may make the bureaucratic machine purr, but it’s anti-life. The life of a tree, its umwelt, becomes meaningless or close to it. The tons of carbon it stored, cleaning the urban air, was released again.
Someone with connections needs more value for his or her property, money takes down a tree. Tree City USA becomes a moneyed suburb tucked conveniently inside the impersonal city.
Supertalls rise; trees fall.
David, this one lands quietly, but it lands hard.
What you’re pointing to isn’t just about trees. It’s about what happens when care becomes conditional, when preservation depends less on principle and more on convenience, timing, or who is asking.
Lisbon reads like a place where stewardship is the baseline assumption.
What do you think creates that difference?