#2. VIEW FROM THE ENGLISH ELM


 

#2. VIEW FROM THE ENGLISH ELM 

I wish I could climb the grandfather tree (grandmother?) in the Park’s west end. It’s 135 feet tall and at least 300 years old, so older than the nation. I want to know more about what it has witnessed at its feet. 
Things that I’m sure it saw: 

    • Minetta Creek flowing toward the Hudson River 
    
    • Lenape hunting parties 
    
    • Dutch farms turned over to freed African born slaves 
    
    • An English nobleman riding over his estate 
    
    • The Herring farm after the Revolution 
    
    • 20,000 burials of yellow fever victims and poor New Yorkers 
    
    • Militias training on the parade ground 
    
    • The gallows where Rose Butler was hanged for arson 
    
    • Bob Dylan and Joan Baez checking into the Washington Square Hotel 

 And more, I’m sure. Wish I could tap its arboreal data bank.

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