The Tree People of New York. An iPhone Photo Essay.
How the naked city warms up with fir each December.
New Yorkers are famous for a lot of things, but one little known fact is how much they love their trees. Here, it’s actually illegal to hurt one. At holiday time, one of the world’s biggest holiday trees is planted in the middle of the city’s beating heart. That mother of all Spruces, the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree, measures in at 94-feet tall, 90–95 years old, and 14 tons this year. It’s a spectacular and massive corporate undertaking. It’s a show.
In addition to the sky-scraping Rockefeller Center tree, there are smaller-scale stunning street and plaza trees decked out in lights all over the city. This one looks like its directing traffic.
On the most intimate scale are the hundreds of thousands of Christmas trees erected inside apartments. Since most New Yorkers don’t own cars, weekend near tree farms, or grow their own from seedlings, common sense would dictate something small and artificial.
But fake fir just doesn’t do it for the New Yorkers with childhood memories of fragrant boughs. They want real. Enter the Tree People of New York and their miracle-gro woodlands.
If the people won’t come to the trees, the trees will come to the people!
The minute Thanksgiving ends, block-long forests sprout on sidewalks overnight. City residents on their way to work discover verdant stands like this. The trees have come to town. Credit cards accepted!
Some stands have a decidedly homespun feel, with charming rustic shacks tucked in front of tall, urbane apartment buildings.
The disruption of cold grey concrete with fragrant dark green needles transforms a dreary urban stroll into a soothing forest bath. Nature-deprived New Yorkers are now fooled into thinking they might be walking in the Alps.
It’s another little-known quirk of New York City law that anyone can sell trees on the street in December. All you need is permission from the owners of the store near your stand. As you can imagine, it’s not really that simple. People “own” corners and return to them year after year.
They build tiny plywood sidewalk shacks with space heaters and trade sleeping shifts in nearby parked cars and vans. Most work in pairs and threes, sleeping in shifts and alternating deliveries. There are female Tree People and Tree Couples too.
This is the city where tree-buying never sleeps. At least one seller is on duty all day and night, to prevent theft or in case someone needs a tree at 3 am. Even all-night bodegas get in on the act by selling fresh pine bouquets dotted with bright, red winterberry stems.
More than a few Tree People of New York are hardy outdoor guides with proven winter survival skills. In the summer, you might run into them pointing out Beluga whales to tourists in northern Canada or kayaking with families in western Pennsylvania.
As a New Yorker might say, “They know from trees.”
Probably because they deal with clumsy tourists all summer, they are also cheerful and adept at managing New Yorkers who want the biggest tree for the smallest price. They re-cut, bale, wrap, and deliver, all with a smile.
Many of them are true folk artists though they’d never cop to that. Over the years, I’ve developed my own small tabletop collection of hand-carved reindeer that I refresh with free small pine branches each year.
Shelves and tabletops are also improvised outdoors. Take this phone booth put to good use. These guys give new meaning to the term “Outsider Art.”
There’s nothing wrong with aiming for decorative perfection, but I personally swear by imperfect, loving craft. Misshapen whimsy with a personal stamp is a great antidote to corporate slick.
Trees, like people, come in all heights and widths for apartments of all sizes. Yes, there are gorgeous tall soldiers for plutocrats in penthouses. There are smaller specimens for one-bedrooms, too. And even an authentic Charlie Brown tree for people who like to go against the flow.
Bread-avoiding, smoothy-swilling, paleo person? Consider this.
For warm-weather dreamers, there was even this.
The inspired artist behind the idiosyncratic offerings at Broadway and 88th says he wants to help city dwellers feel and recall the magic of childhood.
Grateful neighbors give back to their corner Tree People by dropping off gifts of coffee, hot food, blankets, music or sometimes even offering a hot shower. Generosity and joy are contagious.
Late on Christmas Eve, the trees disappear as instantly as they came. Look closely Christmas day and you might find a few traces in twigs and pine needles sprinkled on the sidewalks. Mid-January, New Yorker’s dried-up trees will be curbed, collected, mulched and recycled.
But for now, the trees are in their glory. Some people think New Yorkers will get in the holiday spirit when pigs fly. Well, pigs do fly. I’ve seen it with my own eyes. Right around the corner on Broadway at Christmas.
And this one was just about to take off. Last time I checked, she was gone.
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