This is a followup to yesterday’s post, called Trampled.

That public sidewalk shrubs got trampled and mangled in renovations is sad, but then the renovation is a potential good.

Less excusable is the downright murder and removal of mature trees. Have a look at this google photo:

That mature tree growing by the sidewalk is a maple. It provided a pleasant bit of shade on the exposed sidewalks of the Somerset Street viaduct (overpass over the O-Train track).

That it was alive and green last year is shown in this photo: (the tree in question is just above the cyclist’s head and over to left side of the street)

One Sunday a few weeks ago, I noticed all the cars from the autobody shop ( located in the gold & blue building), were gone. With rising heart, I checked to see if the body shop had moved, but it still appeared to be there. Alas, I failed to notice what was missing, the dog that didn’t bark in the night. The tree that disappeared.

Here’s some bits of the trunk still left leaning against the City’s viaduct walls:

And if you look straight down from the sidewalk, here’s the hole:

There can be some doubt as to whether the tree was on City land or the private property, but my guess it that it is on city land. And it might be possible that the City itself cut it down, but the City staff on the underpass construction nearby say no, and my emails to the City engineer responsible for the job site go unanswered. And I don’t know if it falls within the size of urban tree that might have required a permit to chop down.

But …

I had spoken to the property owner within the last year about the mysterious disappearance of trees along the east side of his parking lot, and the mysterious expansion of said lot into the O-train right of way:

In the above pic, the scooter and three cars are all or partially parked on the O-Train right of way. If you peer carefully into the green shrubs of the steep slope going down the O-train, you will notice a number of fairly large caliber trees have been cut off. Some turned all sorts of mysterious bright gaudy colours just before withering up midseason. The owner denied cutting any trees there, blaming, in a two minute run on sentence, teenagers, vandals, people imagining there were ever tree there in the first place, and finally admitting that he had pruned a few weeds there (not trees!) for the public safety.

In previous public consultations  for the Somerset reconstruction, the City identified the need to “recover” their right of way by fencing it. I wait to see if that fence actually appears. In the meantime, here is the same property’s west frontage onto Breezehill, where there appears to be another stump. Or is that just my imagination?

 For keeners, here’s a few more shots (alas, the tree never got the centre image it deserved):