Detroit: City of Trees

[Lowell]

What I miss from those bygone elm cathedrals is seeing them in autumn when the would all turn to a golden yellow archway.

[Gistok]

The last streets on the east side that I remember that had the Elm Cathedral effect were Washington and Lincoln in Grosse Pointe. They had them well into the 1990s, but sadly many of those giants have fallen as well. All 4 Elms that were on my parents front lawn in the Balduck Park area died between 1966-72.

The city came thru and planted Sycamore trees on my parents street... fast growing... but ugly... they had blotchy peeling bark, and huge leaves that started dropping early in the season, and were among the last to finish dropping their leaves at the end of the season.

[reddog289]

I myself remember the Elms that grew along the sidewalks in Detroit as well as in my front yard. As a little kid I wondered why they cut down the trees. Dad said they were sick and neeeded to be chopped down so the other trees didn't get sick.
Everyonce in a while my folks will talk about the Elm trees and how beautiful it was. Thanks for jogging my memory on this.

[sumas]

The green arches were so unbelievably beautiful. A canopy of green arches as far as you could see. I think my Dad probably shed a tear for every elm that died. When my youngest son was three, I quit working. Every day after taking my eldest to school, we would stop by my folks house for coffee. Dad would take my youngest for a walk. Him, the dog and Ry. He turned it into a nature walk. Surprisingly my youngest remembers that.

He loved trees. He planted two Maples to replace our Elm. A Sugar Maple and a Norway Maple. In our back yard we had a plum tree, a peach tree, one sweet cherry and a sour cherry. On each side of the backyard along the fench line he grew twenty apple trees which he trelised. He also had an amazing vegetable garden. The sour cherry and all those apple trees are still with us.

Just a note, the Norway Maple hangs onto its leaves longer than the Sycamore next door.

[sumas]

I do not dislike Greening of Detroit I merely stated I think they have lost some focus over the years. I volunteered many hours and worked with them on some serious eastside projects. The last being the Alter Berm project. [[Now called the Fox Creek Trail)

For those who do not know the eastside: The Alter Berm was created by the City of Detroit as a result of a lawsuit from GPP to take them out of a flood plain. The berm and fenching were installed along the Fox Creek corridor from Jefferson to the river. The city never came through with the promised landscaping and the result was a weed infested eyesore.

I, in conjunction with the Creekside President, Suzanne Bishop wrote the innitial grant for this project. I put my heart and soul into this design. It was supposed to have been three phases. Tree clusters, shrub clusters and finally ground covers. As a designer one has to consider location, sun, water needs, diversity etc. Overhead electric wires were also a concern. I did my research, native trees,shrubs and ground covers. Brian Coulter, the head forester for GPP was kind enough to provide input.

I envisioned a spectacular streetscape. The money was funneled through Greening. They planted any old tree that they did not sell through their fund raising tree sale. Forget the design, dig a hole plant a tree.

I continued to write grants and volunteered for about four years. Now I don't bother. No doubt the designs are long lost. The 1.25 miles are almost complete with trees. Beats nothing, but it should have been way better.

[terridarlin]

I remember the beautiful elms, but didn't remember the city sprayed DDT in an effort to stop the disease. http://apps.detnews.com/apps/history/index.php?id=9

[sumas]

Did not read your link. Sorry for that, getting lazy in old age. On the eastside, there was no real effort to save the trees. GPP did do sprays and injections and the trees lasted a little longer. No one can turn back the hands of time. Just they were so beautiful and so majestic. I can still close my eyes and remember how wonderful they were. I was just a callus [[sp) teen walking home from school [[Finney) and would appreciate their beauty. Sad really at their loss.

[oladub]

Archdale Street looking north from Schoolcraft in 1957.

This is from a 2001 Detroit News article -

How Detroit lost its stately elms

[EMG]

I too remember the de-greening and re-greening of the neighborhood in which I grew up, particularly the area bordered by Kelly/Moross/I-94/Whittier. In the early 70s, before Dutch Elm struck, there are many areas I remember as being particularly thickly shaded. Then through the late 70's, those same areas lost their trees and became relatively barren. By 20 years after that, shortly before I left the state, new trees had been planted and many areas that were barren in my childhood were then shaded, while some that were shaded then were now relatively barren - a reversal of what I had grown up with.

[kryptonite]

There are not really any trees besides the American Elm that create the tunnel effect that Detroit streets were famous for. Cities like Detroit planted American Elms because they were hardy disease and pollution resistant trees. That was true until the Dutch elm disease. Many cities lost the bulk of their shade trees in the 70's because of the disease and scrambled to replace the lost trees with other tall-growing varieties like Silver Maple [[a crap tree in the long run) and the Green Ash, which are now dying by the millions.

Cities are now planting a mix of trees to minimize the impact of possible future blights. But, a mix of trees does not achieve the beautiful 'cathedral of elms' effect.

I have had two White Ash trees treated in my current yard and there are now disease resistant elms and even chestnut trees. But cities will probably never plant a single type of tree again.

There was a Detroit forestry department at one time, at least in the 1980s, it was part of the Parks and Rec department. I ordered some trees for myself and neighbors and was told that our street was designated an Ash street. The city planted each street with a different species of tree to avoid the total loss scenario that happened in the 1970s. Since the advent of the emerald ash borer I have read that cities will no longer plant a single variety of tree on any street, block, or neighorhood.

[EastsideAl]

I was a child during the '60s and one of the most vivid sense-memories of my childhood is the constant background sounds of chain-saws and wood-chippers operating as elm after elm was cut down across the east side. And the smell of the spray that the city regularly spread in a futile attempt to stop the spread of the bugs.

I'm also just old enough to remember the cathedral of trees that covered our Indian Village street when we moved in, and to remember it completely disappearing soon thereafter, including 3 trees on our own property. The pictures Hornwrecker posted above are the clearest representation I've seen of what the result of losing the elm trees looked like for much of the city.

Only now are the maples that were planted to replace those trees finally coming close to replicating the effect of those elms, but they will never be the same. I've often thought that the dutch elm disease, and the resultant change of so many of our streets from beautifully shaded to starkly denuded, had a silent hand in the exodus from and the decline of so many of our neighborhoods in the decades that followed.

[Detroitnerd]

Plane trees have a pretty good vaselike effect, I think.

But, really, it's probably a bad idea to plant a whole city with just one type of tree. It's called "monoculture," and it tends to attract hungry pests and diseases who see an area that's ripe for the picking.

I heard that all the Elm trees were replaced with Ash, and so we got the ash borer.

What's the status now? I had heard a few years ago that Detroit was planning to replace all the ash trees with one kind of tree, thereby repeating the error again.

[Mackenzie68]

Tree of Heaven came to the United States from China with the workers building the railroads out west who missed their home here on the "Golden Mountain." Not so much truth in advertising on either side.

Growing up on the Northwest side, I lived under those elms and walked to school under them as well. The city brought giant spray rigs through to try to keep the trees alive. Mom had read "Silent Spring, " or at least magazine articles by Rachael Carson and called the city to see just what that foul smelling mixture was. "DDT in an oil base so it would cling to the trees better", she was told. She suggested rather forcefully that they stop spraying it while the kids were walking to and from school. Spraying was announced in advance after that and we were advised to stay off the streets with our windows closed while they sprayed and for a certain amount of time afterward. Alas, the elms died anyway.

[Hamtragedy]

That view on Archdale is taken directly in front of my house [[the first house on the right with two trees on the easement). I remember when the trees came down in 1978.

[MichMatters]

Did a little online research, and there is still a forestry division of Parks & Rec. According to an AP article from June of last year, there are about 50 forestry employees. I wonder how that compares to cities of similar physical size?

[kellyroad]

Here's a winter shot on Eastwood Avenue during the winter storm of 1965. The dutch elm tree trimming, spraying, and removal had just started that year. Prior to that one could one could see a three block tunnel of elms between Kelly road and Morang. EVERY home had a towering elm on its blvd. between the sidewalk and street. Many homes also had elms or maples in the front or back yard. Considering the size of the lots one could see why Detroit was the city of trees.

[MichMatters]

BTW, here are some excerpts from the June 8, 2009 AP story on the Greening of Detroit I found while researching:

Known a century ago for its tree-lined streets and neighborhoods, the city saw much of its greenery fall casualty to the spread of Dutch elm disease in the 1950s and, more recently, the tree-killing emerald ash borer.

These days, there is no time for replanting because the city's more than 50 forestry employees are focused on cutting down dead or dying trees across Detroit's 138 square miles.


"We can go in very shortly after the ash are down," said Paul Barley, Greening of Detroit's director of urban forestry. "And because we use almost all volunteers ... the labor cost is pretty low."


Bairley said a tree that would cost the city $100 by itself costs only about $15 more in labor for Greening of Detroit to plant, much less than if a crew of city employees did the work. Greening of Detroit expects to plant about 2,400 trees this year, at a cost of about $200,000.

...

One of the Detroit group's projects will be re-establishing the city's own nursery, Walter I. Meyers Nursery at Rouge Park, where the city used to grow its own crop of trees to be planted elsewhere.


"We had 150 acres of land out there that was just sitting. It was a beautiful place to go," said Brad Dick, deputy director of the city's General Services Department. "I think it's going to be a huge benefit to the city."


Founded in 1920, the nursery was used less in the 1950s and 1960s as the city bought less expensive trees from other nurseries. It was eventually was left untended.

...

Volunteers will spend the summer clearing brush, weeds and debris from the nursery. Plans call for about 20,000 trees to be planted there in the next five years, said Jill Katakowski, the organization's operations manager for the nursery. That will allow the group to use 3,000 to 5,000 trees a year from the nursery instead of buying them from commercial nurseries...

[kellyroad]

MichMatters: Thanks for the nursery info. Many Detroiters [[imho) at least on the east side, were well aware of the "Forestry" department in the city but did not know of the nursery that cultivated trees for future planting. Learn something new every day.

[MichMatters]

Kelly, I'm learning newly about this city every day, myself. I'm rather embarrassed to have not known about the Forestry division as my grandfather worked for decades in Parks & Rec for the city. Unfortunately, he died shortly before I was born and no one really talks about him or his work, much.

[gibran]

it was like walking through the haunted forest of oz in the early sixties...on the way to GA...I remember the squirrels chirping wildly at us kids and scaring the crap out of us.

in the fall as night fell and the street lights illuminated the leaves after a rain it was amazing even to a kid who never slowed down...enough to notice anything...

I the summer the canopy formed a tunnel to ride through the rain swollen streets as if we were on a canal...I even remember a particular ice storm when we skated to school on the side walks under the trees...

I also remember following sprayers on bikes...DDT in the morning...not too bright..maybe that's why my memory is now fading....good post guys. I think we all felt the loss of those big old trees..sad thing is I had a photo of myself standing next to a newly planted one...yikes...To this day I hate to cut a tree down....

[kryptonite]

The cathedral or tunnel effect was especially beautiful on boulevards. Like Outer Drive in Rosedale Park. Also West Grand Blvd. I guess Oakman Blvd and others would have also had beautiful elms.

Detroit was a city of intense beauty prior to the Dutch Elm Disease.

[esighed]

A few weeks ago volunteers planted trees donated by the Cotton family along Jefferson on the east side. I planted Sweet Gums near Van Dyke to Mt Elliot. London plane trees went next and then a few other varieties towards downtown.There were several hundred volunteers and we had a forester for each block to make sure the depth was right. Take a look at the blocks from Alter to downtown. It was very inspiring to see so many volunteers esp. from schools.

[loralei]

I work for the City of the Detroit. The City is removing trees that are infected with the emerald ash borer, however, it is big task. And we are also planting over 2,000 trees a year in conjunction with our greening partner, the Greening of Detroit. The Greening and the City have an excellent partnership - we pay them to do what we don't have the resources to do and they leverage what we can do to bring in more funding to plant more trees! We are planting over 20 varieties of trees so that we can have a diverse forest in the City of Detroit for future generations.

[MichMatters]

Very good to hear, esighed and loralei! Are any fungus-resistent Elms part of the plan? They've got hybrids, now, that are very resistent to disease. One thing I hope you guys aren't planting, anymore, are honey locust. God, I hate those trees. What a mess.

[reddog289]

While reading this thread and veiwing the pics , I think that the one photo of Eastwood stirs up memories of my youth. more than anything. Seeing now what happened with the Ash Borer deal, brought alot of thought back.
Seeing my cousins block in Westland after the whole mess was cut down, really made me think of how bare everything looks without the trees. I remember also the when people painted the trunks white. My Dad said it was to keep the bugs from killing the trees.