J.J. Byrne Playground’s Beloved Tree was Cut Down. What’s Replacing It?
Kim Maier, Executive Director of the Old Stone House, explains why the 91-year-old tree was removed and what’s planned to fill its place.
Over the decades, families have played, gathered, and rested beneath the Pin Oak tree on the Third Street side of J.J. Byrne Playground. Positioned between the baby swings and the toddler play structure, the tree, planted in 1933, has been a focal point of the playground for 91 years. But on September 3rd, following an assessment of the tree’s structural health by the New York City Department of Parks & Recreation, the tree was cut down.
For the next several days, the removal of the tree was a main topic of discussion among J.J. Bryne regulars. “They cut down the huge tree at JJ!” a friend texted me with a picture of the fresh-cut stump. Another friend said he was at the park the day the tree came down and his daughter was mesmerized by the Parks Department’s equipment.
“Pin Oaks have an 80-year lifespan; they die their own natural death. The bottom part of the tree wasn’t in bad shape, but the top of the tree was degraded,” Kim Maier, Executive Director of the Old Stone House and Washington Park, told me during an interview this week.
This discovery came as a surprise to Kim, who originally contacted the Parks Department to do some maintenance on the tree. “That tree had a number of dangerous, dangling, dead branches, and we really can't have that in the middle of the playground,” said Kim. But the last thing she expected to witness that day was the tree coming down. “We had no time to prepare everybody for it. We couldn’t say, ‘Look, we love our tree, and it's sick and has reached the end of its life. This is what is planned.’” The Parks Department, she added, really tries to avoid taking trees down — “but they take them down when there's a real problem.”
When I started thinking about writing this story, I was interested in learning what the tree “experienced” during its life at the playground. Planted in 1933, I imagined it survived a blazing fire or nationwide tree fungus outbreak. Did it ever lose a big branch in a storm and eventually regrow it from a tiny green shoot?
As far as Kim knows, nothing that dramatic happened, but she talked about how it “experienced” the people of the neighborhood. “What's interesting is that the neighborhood looks very much the same as when the tree was planted, but the inhabitants of the neighborhood have changed so much,” she told me.
From the 1930s through the early 1970s, Park Slope and the surrounding neighborhoods were home to a vibrant working class. Infrastructure, parks, and transportation projects were a priority, including an ambitious playground construction program led by Robert Moses. This program opened 204 playgrounds in 1935, including J.J. Byrne Playground on August 11, 1935.
The community enjoyed the playground for decades, but like many neighborhoods in New York, the 1970s were challenging. “There was so little support for parks and other infrastructure in the ‘70s, and [Washington Park] became quite degraded,” Kim explained. “ It wasn't a particularly well utilized or safe park in the ‘70s and ‘80s.”
In the ‘90s and early 2000s, the neighborhood started to shift; it started to gentrify. In 2004, Kim joined the staff at Old Stone House, and “having somebody on site all the time meant the park was cleaner and a little more community-friendly.” She also noted that more programming at the park made it a completely different place than it was in the ‘70s and ‘80s. “Maybe more similar to the playground built in the 1930s because this is a gathering place for a very vibrant community. Although different socioeconomically and maybe culturally, it’s still a really important gathering place,” said Kim.
As Kim and her team begin to plan the replacement for the Pin Oak tree with the Parks Department, creating a space to build community and encourage interaction is a key priority. One idea is to install benches in a U-shape facing inward at a shaded play area, replacing the stump and circle of benches that face outward.
I asked if planting another tree to replace the Pin Oak was a consideration. Kim said it would take a long time — possibly years — to get another tree planted there, and she’s focused on getting shaded space so families can be comfortable during the hot seasons. “[J.J. Byrne Playground] is a very, very sunny playground, and we need the shade really badly. The tree is a huge loss. So our goal is to get some kind of shade structure in,” said Kim. She’s also working with the Parks Department to plant trees in the two empty tree pits on the corner of Fifth Avenue and Third Street.
Kim said the tree was a monument in the playground, and I couldn’t agree more. It was comforting to learn that parts of the Pin Oak were repurposed in the community. Local artists picked up pieces to use; chunks went to Litchfield Villa, where parts of the building are still heated with wood-fired stoves; and some of the tree is being used for the cooking programs hosted at the Old Stone House. Also, there are two little stumps for sitting in the north garden that were made from the tree. In a way, the Pin Oak is still here, still part of our community. “None of it went to waste,” said Kim.
Thank you so much, Kim, for all your work and dedication to J.J. Byrne Playground, the Old Stone House, and Washington Park — as well as your help with this story!
(Top image by Tommy C.; benches and stump picture by Henry Rosoff, via X/Twitter; crowded playground picture by Colin Hill; All black-and-white photos are courtesy of Kim Maier/Old Stone House.)
This week’s puzzle is an overhead southeast view of J.J. Byrne Playground in 1934 (MS 51 opened in 1951), courtesy of Kim Maier/Old Stone House.
The puzzle is 60 pieces, but you can change it by clicking on the box of nine dots on the left of the bar, selecting the number of puzzle pieces you want, and clicking OK. Also, you can view the original image by clicking the photo icon on the top bar, and you can make your workspace full screen by clicking at the top right.
DO THE PUZZLE!
How cool is this 1/24” scale model of Lawrence Valenza’s childhood home in Park Slope?!
The City Council approved new legislation that will stop tenants from paying broker fees: The bill, sponsored by Brooklyn City Councilmember Chi Ossé, would make landlords pay broker fees, which are typically around 15% of the yearly rent.
November 12th kicked off a new requirement for garbage bins in the city: All NYC properties with up to nine residential units must use a bin of 55 gallons or less with a secure lid for trash.
Brooklyn Botanic Garden’s plants won’t be impacted by the residential development coming to Crown Heights: After more than six years of back-and-forth, revisions were made to the proposed rezoning of 962–972 Franklin Ave, which will protect BBG’s plants from shadows.
11/15 Moonlight Tour, 6PM-8PM 📍Green-Wood Cemetery
11/15 Poupeh Missaghi presents Sound Museum, in conversation with Karla Kelsey, 7PM-8PM 📍Community Bookstore
11/16 LGBTQ+ History and Birding in the Vale, 10:30AM-12PM & 12PM-1:30PM 📍Grand Army Plaza
11/16 Lights, Camera, Legacy: Filming Family Stories, 2PM-3:30PM 📍Green-Wood Cemetery
11/16 Yuri Herrera presents Season of the Swamp, in conversation with Jakob Guanzon, 7PM-8PM 📍Community Bookstore
11/16 Ali Kolbert, 7:30PM 📍Union Hall
11/17 Erotic Drawing at a Sex Shop, 11AM-1PM 📍Please - An Educated Pleasure Shop
11/17 Community Pizza Bake with Angel Martinez Lombardo, 12PM-4PM 📍Old Stone House
11/17 Alex English, 7:30PM 📍Union Hall
11/17 Vincent Bryant and MANDAL World Comedy Tour, 10PM-11:30PM 📍Union Hall
11/18 Bobbin Lace with Elena Kanagy-Loux, 6:30PM-9:30PM 📍Old Stone House
11/18 Visual Obituaries, 6:30PM-8PM 📍Green-Wood Cemetery
11/18 Anna Moschovakis presents An Earthquake is a Shaking of the Surface of the Earth, in conversation with Jeremy Tiang, 7PM-8PM 📍Community Bookstore
11/18 Frankenstein’s Baby, 7:30PM📍Union Hall
11/19 Paul Eprile presents Jean Giono's Fragments of a Paradise, in conversation with Susan Stewart, 7PM-8PM 📍Community Bookstore
11/20 Baroque Holiday Centerpiece, 530PM-8:30PM📍Brooklyn Botanic Garden
11/21 Idea Generation Session at the Old Stone House, 6PM-8PM 📍Old Stone House
11/21 Binns Media Group Present THE POP-UP with Nore Davis, 7PM-9PM 📍Union Hall
11/21 Brooklyn Talks: Contemporary Artists in Practice, 7PM-9PM 📍Brooklyn Museum
11/21 Sipping and Felting Class, 7PM-8:30PM 📍Art Collective Cafe
11/21 Major LOL Vibes with Rachel Kaly, 10PM 📍Union Hall
Thank you so much for reading! If you liked this issue, please consider sharing it with a friend, or tap the heart at the beginning of the piece. Also, if you’d like to gift a subscription to a friend, you can do that here. I appreciate your support so much. Hope you have a great weekend!
Kelley xoxo
What a lovely piece Kelley!
This was fascinating! We’ve been missing that tree a lot, and wondering about what’s to come. I loved reading about the history of the park too, as it’s one of our favorite spots in the neighborhood.