Goodbye to another piece of old Trinidad

Change happens all the time. When it comes to a neighborhood, some call it progress, while others lament the passage of time. Regardless of the position you take, it can be jarring to wake up one day and find the things you're accustomed to no longer being there.

On our corner in Trinidad is the former home and office of Dr. Louis E. Lowman, M.D. Neighbors were born in that house and treated in his office. It was one of the only stand-alone homes in all of Trinidad. By the end of today or tomorrow, it will likely only be a memory, to be replaced by a six-unit condominium building. I'm putting these pictures online in hope that those who are interested in our history will have something to find when they go searching on the Internet, wondering what used to be at 1328 Montello Avenue NE before it was replaced with something modern and new.

(Photos by the author unless otherwise noted.)

Photo from Google Street View

Photo from Google Street View

Photo from Google Street View

UPDATED: Oates Street's transitory trees

(This post has been updated. See below the jump.)

The 1200 block of Oates Street NE, unlike many other blocks in Trinidad, lacks a large tree canopy. There are some small- and medium-sized trees, but nothing like the full-grown oaks that line the 1200 blocks of Owen Place, Neal Street, and Morse Street nearby.

It takes decades for trees to grow to that size, but everything has to start sometime. That sometime appeared to be last month, as the city's Urban Forestry Administration (UFA) planted at least a half-dozen young london plane/sycamore trees on the western end of the block.

Here are a few of those young trees.

The trees were kind of spindly, with some branches that weren't leafing out, but they seemed healthy enough, and I thought that, with enough time and TLC, they would provide shade and enjoyment for our block for years to come.

Incidentally, I've been a citizen forester for Casey Trees for a few years, and one of the things that we do when planting trees that are "balled and burlapped" is to remove the twine, metal, and burlap that surrounds the tree's root ball so that the roots have a chance to grow and get established in the surrounding soil. After these trees were planted, I noticed that there was still twine and burlap wrapped around the base of these trees where they meet the ground.

 Example of the twine and burlap still visible at the young tree's base.

I was assured by the Ward 5 arborist not to worry:

UFA changed its planting specs last year. Leaving the burlap and rope on allows for the staking to be omitted, which can be problematic in many instances. The nursery uses a new highly degradable burlap and twine, so the traditional negative impacts are mitigated.

All of this discussion is temporarily for naught, though, as UFA removed most of the trees shortly after planting them. The Ward 5 arborist said that the trees were being removed to be replaced with higher quality trees. He said it would take a few weeks, so we sit waiting—a dream deferred. Below is the only one of the trees that was left on our end of the block. Hopefully it won't be the only one much longer!